amsfonts.faq, last updated 2002/01/18 Frequently Asked Questions about the AMSFonts Distribution %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (1) I'm using LaTeX -- How do I get bold greek, or bold italic letters a,A,b,B,... in math? Get the amsbsy.sty package in the amslatex distribution, which provides a \boldsymbol command that can be applied to Greek and Latin letters (e.g., \boldsymbol{\beta} or \boldsymbol{M}). This package is not included in the AMSFonts distribution because the bold fonts that will most often be required -- cmmib and cmbsy -- have since 1994 been considered to be part of the standard LaTeX font set, so they should be at your disposal whether or not you have the AMSFonts collection installed. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (2) I use a 360dpi printer. Can I use one of the sets of .pk files which are posted on the archive, or do I need to generate my own files from the Metafont source code? If you want pk files for a 360dpi printer, the simplest thing to do is to retrieve the 300dpi pk files and install them. Since they include the fonts at magsteps 0 through 5, and since each magstep is 1.2 times the previous one, 300dpi at magsteps 0 through 5 is also 360dpi at magsteps 0 through 4. All you will be missing is magstephalf and magstep 5, which most people don't use anyway. In other words, if you look at the contents of the 300dpi distribution, you will see for each font a 300, 329, 360, 432, 518, 622, and 746 dpi pk file. The last five of these are useful for a 360dpi printer. If you wish to have pk files for magstephalf and magstep5 at 360dpi, you will have to generate them yourself using Metafont, but you can very likely get along without them. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (3) How can I get PostScript outlines of AMSFonts? PostScript Type 1 versions of the AMSFonts can be obtained from the AMS web server at http://www.ams.org/tex/type1-fonts.html. The collection is mirrored onto CTAN, in the area fonts/amsfonts/ps-type1. Only sizes 5, 7, and 10-point are included in this collection. When using these fonts, it is generally advisable to use the `psamsfonts' option to access them. This option is supported for both (AMS-)LaTeX and AMS-TeX; see the AMSFonts User's Guide for details. Warning: If `psamsfonts' is added to an existing document, it may result in some differences in line and page breaks. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (4) I use OzTeX. The Macintosh AMSFonts package is for use with Textures. What do I do? OzTeX is an implementation of TeX on the Macintosh which behaves similarly to implementations in DOS or Unix. The files for use with DOS and Unix can be used in OzTeX on the Macintosh. In the installation instructions, simply substitute "folder" for "directory" in all cases. The current OzTeX distribution includes the version of the AMSFonts as of when the distribution was compiled. If your version of OzTeX is not the most recent, updating it may be the simplest way of installing the AMSFonts. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (5) Why isn't a 10-point font for cmcsc, cmmib, cmbsy, or cmex included in the AMSFonts package? All of these fonts at 10-point are included in the standard set of fonts with any implementation of TeX. If you do not have them available on your system, re-install the fonts from the original distribution files of your TeX implementation or contact the distributor/vendor of that implementation of TeX. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (6) What happened to the fonts msxm* and msym*? A very early release of AMSFonts in the mid-1980s included fonts called msxm5-10 and msym5-10. These were replaced in the late 1980s by the fonts msam5-10 and msbm5-10 (included in this distribution). The msxm and msym fonts were done in a very early version of Metafont which is no longer available. The Metafont code for these fonts will not work with current implementations of Metafont in current operating systems. This means that the msxm and msym fonts cannot be generated. They are not supported by the AMS, and their use or distribution is strongly discouraged. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (7) I've seen a fancy script font used in AMS publications. Why isn't it included in AMSFonts, and where can I get it? Many AMS publications use some proprietary fonts which were purchased from commercial font vendors and are not in the public domain. This includes the script font which appears in many of our books and journals. Users who wish to purchase such a font in PostScript or TrueType outline form from a commercial font vendor will also need to convert the metrics file from the vendor into a .tfm file using one of the available programs for doing to (Tomas Rokicki's afm2tfm is in the public domain, and Y&Y's afmtotfm is a proprietary program). Another option that may prove satisfactory is to use the rsfs font -- `Ralph Smith's Fancy Script'. This can be found on CTAN in the area fonts/rsfs/ ; both Metafont and Type 1 versions are available. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (8) I'm using Textures on a Macintosh, and I followed the instructions for installing msam* and msbm*, but some of the symbols won't print or display properly on the screen. What's wrong? Although there are several possible causes, the easiest one to put right is a setting for the monitor that instructs it to use more than 256 colors. If this is reset to exactly 256, the symbols should appear as expected. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% (9) I'm using babel with the polish option as well as the amssymb package. There is an error: ! LaTeX Error: Command `\lll' already defined. How can I avoid this error? In amssymb, there is a synonum for \lll, namely \llless, so anyone who needs to use babel with the polish option does not lose access to this symbol. In polish.ldf, \lll is used as an internal command. It has been suggested to replace this by a command using `@' to avoid conflicts of this sort; whether or not that is done, the error can be avoided by loading amssymb before babel: \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage[polish]{babel} %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%