Greek letters in text without changing to math mode

17 Comments

You don’t need to change to math mode every time you want to type a greek letter in normal text. Loading the textgreek package allows typesetting greek letters, generally just by adding a text-prefix to the letter name, e.g. for \Delta\beta it would be:

\usepackage{textgreek}
...
\textDelta\textbeta

The letters will adapt to the font style you are using (bold, italics, small capitals, etc.)

Furthermore, the author provides three different font types, cbgreek (default), euler, and artemisia. The font type can be change through the optional argument, when loading the package:

\usepackage[euler]{textgreek}

The differences are minor for most letters, check the documentation for details.

Complete command list (copied from the documentation):

textgreek_commands

Commands for greek letters in normal text.

Note, \mu is an exception. Since the textcomp package already provided a command textmu, the author decided to call it textmugreek instead. Use the latter to avoid unexpected results.

17 Comments

  3. aucuneimportance

    What’s the difference with using \ensuremath{\alpha} …

    Any way, what’s the problem with typing $\beta$ everytime ?

    Reply

    • Hi there,

      The main advantage probably is that you don’t have to worry about font style (e.g. bold), it works just like for normal text. Also, the letters are not in italics by default. Other than that, I think you are right, it’s a personal choice whether you prefer switching to math mode or using the textgreek package.
      By the way, for bold symbols in math mode use:

      \usepackage{bm}
...
$\boldsymbol{\beta}$

      Ensuremath has it’s own problems (see here for a discussion), but is also a valid choice in most cases.

      Best, Tom.

      Reply

  4. ABC

    Great guide! I will use it from now on! But…

    I am having trouble using this with \usepackage[sc]{mathpazo} that I put to use the Palatino font.

    Greek letters (e.g., \textbeta)
    (1) look ugly and pixelated (when zoomed in)
    (2) are not modified by \textbf and such
    (3) are not similar to the Palatino font

    If I remove the mathpazo package everything works (but I get the standard LaTeX font).

    Does anyone know a workaround for this? I know (3) is not the packages fault, but I would love to have upright greek fonts Palatino-like.

    Thanks

    Reply

  5. Marie Hoffmann

    Was wondering a long time, whether this would be possible. Thanks!
    Noticed, that the optional package is named “artemisia”, not “anthemisia” like written above.

    Reply

  6. Jam

    In case anyone had the same problem as me… this was the top google result for me, and it works, except LaTeX ignores spaces after I use it. e.g. \textalpha helix comes out as αhelix. A simple way to get around this is using {} brackets. \textalpha{ }helix comes out right.

    Reply

  8. Enrico

    Hi. I tried to use the package textgreek. However, even with a very minimal example (see below), I get pixelated fonts. What is the issue?

    \documentclass{article}
\usepackage{textgreek}
\begin{document}
\textSigma
\end{document}
    Reply

    • Hi Enrico,

      Not sure what Editor/OS you are on. Perhaps the problem is with your PDF viewer. Did you try looking the the PDF with Acrobat/Preview?

      Best, Tom

      Reply

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