Using mathematical symbols alpha, beta, implies in latex

Question

How can I use the mathematical symbols like alpha, beta, implies and many more symbols in the tex file?

You can learn more about math and LaTeX in Herberts mathmode. — Johannes_B, Dec 10 '14 at 15:56
Hello! I hope I won't sound harsh, but from your question it seems to me that you lack some basic LaTeX knowledge. I would like to suggest you to take reasonable amount of time and learn the crucial basics, for good resources see What are good learning resources for a LaTeX beginner?. — yo', Dec 10 '14 at 15:59
@Sigur Can anyone please help, if I want to use $\alpha$ instead of \alpha what do I change in the \userpackage? It is giving me an error on overleaf when I use $\alpha$ — Fareed Abi Farraj, Oct 08 '19 at 16:26
@FareedAF, sorry, I didn't understand. Observe that \usepackage not user. Also, \alpha should be in math mode, inside some $ $ and it is a basic comand, should work without any addtional package. — Sigur, Oct 08 '19 at 17:04
@Sigur There's an overflow when simply used \alpha; all the text after that overflows out of the page. Even this doesn't work, \mathrm{\alpha}. And only this $\alpha$ because of the prefixed, suffixed spaces. (at least in my case) - FareedAF might have faced the same issue — bonCodigo, Jul 16 '23 at 16:46

score 13 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 10 '14 at 16:14

LaTeX needs to know beforehand that the subsequent text does indeed contain mathematical elements. This is because LaTeX typesets maths notation differently from normal text. Therefore, special environments have been declared for this purpose.

Greek letters are commonly used in mathematics, and they are very easy to type in math mode. You just have to type the name of the letter after a backslash: if the first letter is lowercase, you will get a lowercase Greek letter, if the first letter is uppercase (and only the first letter), then you will get an uppercase letter. Note that some uppercase Greek letters look like Latin ones, so they are not provided by LaTeX (e.g. uppercase Alpha and Beta are just "A" and "B" respectively). Lowercase epsilon, theta, kappa, phi, pi, rho, and sigma are provided in two different versions. The alternate, or variant, version is created by adding "var" before the name of the letter:

\alpha, A, \beta, B, \gamma, \Gamma, \pi, \Pi, \phi, \varphi, \Phi

See more in: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Mathematics

You might mention that mathmode is invoked inline with $ or $, $ delimiters, and on a separate line with \[, \] delimiters, as well as various math environments. Welcome to the site. — Steven B. Segletes, Dec 10 '14 at 16:16
There's an overflow when simply used \alpha; all the text after that overflows out of the page. Even this doesn't work, \mathrm{\alpha}. And only this $\alpha$ because of the prefixed, suffixed spaces. (at least in my case) — bonCodigo, Jul 16 '23 at 16:45

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 10 '14 at 16:00

3

You might want to try the "amsmath" package. Use \usepackage{amsmath} in the preamble of your document. Then one way to get an equation with greek letter is:

\begin{equation}\label{eq1}
    \alpha + \beta_1
\end{equation}

answered Dec 10 '14 at 16:00

ScoobyDoo84

115

7

Don't give labels like eq1. describe the contents in a keyword, like \label{eq:alphaBetaSum}. – Johannes_B Dec 10 '14 at 16:02
Can you please help, if I want to use $\alpha$ instead of \alpha what do I change in the \userpackage? It is giving me an error on overleaf when I use $\alpha$ – Fareed Abi Farraj Oct 08 '19 at 16:29

Using mathematical symbols alpha, beta, implies in latex

2 Answers2