Italic Greek characters in Times New Roman

Question

I'm very new to LaTeX! I'm trying to create a template for creating scientific reports as PDFs. I'd like the whole of the document to be in Times New Roman. I've used the package pslatex, which works well except for the fact that none of the Greek characters (including those in equations) are italic as they should be.

Is there a way to make these characters italic? The standard {\it ?} has no effect. Or is there a package other than pslatex that puts the document in Times New Roman but doesn't cause this problem?

I'm using TeXShop.

This illustrates the problem:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}            
\usepackage{pslatex}   %  This makes the font Times New Roman.
\usepackage{amsfonts,amssymb,amsmath,mathbbol}   % For maths symbols.

\usepackage{titlesec}                                       
\titlespacing\section{0pt}{5pt plus 1pt minus 1pt}{5pt plus 1pt minus 1pt}                                                              
\usepackage{graphics,graphicx,epsfig,ulem}
\usepackage[top=2.0cm, bottom=2.0cm, left=2.0cm, right=2.0cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{multicol}                   
\usepackage[none]{hyphenat}             

\begin{document}

Times New Roman.

${\beta=3\alpha}$

{\it${\beta }$} = 3{\it${\alpha}$}

${\alpha, \beta, \gamma, \delta, \epsilon, \lambda, \phi, \rho, \varphi, \omega}$

\begin{equation}{\it t}_{1/2} = \dfrac{\ln(2)}{{\lambda}}.      
\end{equation}

\end{document}

Regarding \it in general: Have a look at Does it matter if I use \textit or \it, \bfseries or \bf, etc — doncherry, Sep 28 '12 at 15:34

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:32

pslatex is really an obsolete package. You can use mathptmx, as already suggested, or

\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}

(which requires an updated TeX distribution).

`mathptmx`

enter image description here

`newtxtext` + `newtxmath`

enter image description here

Here is the source. Notice how the result is obtained more simply than you did (everybody must learn, when using a new tool).

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}   % For maths symbols.
%%% uncomment one of the following and comment the other
\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}
%\usepackage{mathptmx}
\begin{document}
Times New Roman.
$\beta=3\alpha$
$\beta=3\alpha$
$\alpha, \beta, \gamma, \delta, \epsilon, \lambda, \phi, \rho, \varphi, \omega$
\begin{equation}
t_{1/2} = \frac{\ln(2)}{\lambda}.
\end{equation}
\end{document}

(The difference in size is an artifact of the image production.)

score 2 · Answer 2 · 2012-09-28T15:35:30.317

2

do not use the obsolete package pslatex. Use instead:

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
 \usepackage{mathptmx}

and your greek letter should be in italic by default without \it which is already an old command, use \textit or \itshape instead.

edited Sep 28 '12 at 15:35

answered Sep 28 '12 at 15:29

Thanks! Now if there are characters within math formatting which I don't want to be italic, how do I do that? For example, with $^{137\text m}$Ba in my document, the m is now italicised, whereas before the \text command used to prevent that. – Daniel Sep 28 '12 at 15:44
@Daniel Is there a preference of when to use \text and \mathrm? and Difference between various methods for producing text in math mode – Qrrbrbirlbel Sep 28 '12 at 15:57
$^{137\text{m}}$ Pay attention to the parentheses. $^{...}$ for more than one charcater as exponent. $\text{m}$ for an upright m from the text char set – Sep 28 '12 at 16:01
Thanks again. The m was still typesetting as italic when I tried $^{137\text{m}}$ but $^{\mathrm{137m}}$Ba works the way I want it to. – Daniel Sep 28 '12 at 16:16
then you have an \itshape or something else around there – Sep 28 '12 at 16:24

Italic Greek characters in Times New Roman

2 Answers2

mathptmx

newtxtext + newtxmath

`mathptmx`

`newtxtext` + `newtxmath`