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How do I get a clean looking \micro symbol µ ?

enter image description here

I want a micro symbol, not a greek \mu, because that is another symbol. However tex does not render the proper symbol, and the symbol that is does render looks like it was stolen from a different font.
The 2nd variant is not much better.

How do I get a \micro symbol that actually looks like it was not copy-pasted from comic-sans?

% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage[euler]{textgreek}
%\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage[active,tightpage,psfixbb]{preview}
\PreviewEnvironment{pgfpicture}

\setlength\PreviewBorder{0pt}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[x=1pt,y=1pt]
  \begin{scope}
  \path[clip] (  0.00,  0.00) rectangle (433.62,252.94);
  \definecolor{drawColor}{RGB}{0,0,0}

  \node[text=drawColor,anchor=base,inner sep=0pt, outer sep=0pt, scale=  1] at (242.01, 10.00) 
{Time in μ $\text{\textmu{}} \text{seconds}$, $n = 125\,000$};
% the unicode char "μ" does not render. And it has better not look like #2 above >-:< 
  \end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
Johan
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    (1) welcome, (2) why don't you take a step back and look into the siunitx package. (3) using language like "looks like it was drawn by a 2-year old" does not really make others want to help you. – daleif Feb 12 '19 at 14:54
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    My alternative here, of slanting the italic Greeks into an upright posture, is another possibility you can reject: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/145926/upright-greek-font-fitting-to-computer-modern/230220#230220 – Steven B. Segletes Feb 12 '19 at 14:58
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    and I thought my handwriting was bad.... ;-) – JPi Feb 12 '19 at 15:01
  • @StevenB.Segletes, I'd love to try it, but MikTex cannot find \usepackage{mathptmx} anywhere. – Johan Feb 12 '19 at 15:11
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    The unicode symbol in your question is Unicode Character 'GREEK SMALL LETTER MU' (U+03BC), so it is quite unclear what you mean by not wanting a greek mu. – Ulrike Fischer Feb 12 '19 at 15:12
  • MikTeX uses the name psnfss instead of mathptmx. It tends to group packages into bundles with new names. The CTAN website provides the MikTeX name when different. – John Kormylo Feb 12 '19 at 16:06
  • ? The first one is the "proper" symbol? It's okay if you don't like the glyph, but it is a µ symbol. Remember you're use a serif font. If you use a version without serifs in the midst of a serif font, that's not using the "proper" symbol – Au101 Feb 12 '19 at 16:14
  • Not sure why you don't consider the second example as “the same font”. Of course the Latin alphabet doesn't contain a glyph for mu; the glyph in the second example is taken from the Greek version of the Computer Modern fonts. – egreg Feb 12 '19 at 16:16
  • @Au101, it the the \mu symbol, not the \micro symbol. The \micro symbol in computer science is a different symbol from the greek letter mu. – Johan Feb 12 '19 at 16:57
  • In the first line of your question you used a mu U+03BC μ not micro U+00B5 µ – David Carlisle Feb 12 '19 at 18:41

2 Answers2

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As you don't like the micro symbol from siunitx, I try something else:

Use unicode-math with XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX

enter image description here

\documentclass[margin=3mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{unicode-math}
\begin{document}
10 $\symup{\mu}$s
\end{document}

Edit:

As @Mico stated in the comments, you should combine unicode-math with siunitx by defining a new command – it is more natural IMHO:

\documentclass{article} 
\usepackage{unicode-math,siunitx} 
\newcommand\upmicro{\symup{\mu}} 
\begin{document} 
\SI{10}{\upmicro\second}
\end{document}
  • Thank you, although not technically very serif-ish, it does match the curvyness of CMU computer modern nicely. Much easier on the eyes. – Johan Feb 12 '19 at 16:55
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    +1. It's straightforward to combine this method with the siunitx package and its \SI macro. E.g., \documentclass{article} \usepackage{unicode-math,siunitx} \newcommand\upmicro{\symup{\mu}} \begin{document} \SI{10}{\upmicro\second} \end{document}. – Mico Feb 12 '19 at 17:46
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I found this rather drastic solution given in the answer by user11232 in this StackExchange post quite satisfying (on GNU/Linux i.e. Fedora using pdflatex). I noticed that the mu character looked different there from that on my system when using siunitx package (without using the libertine package). The solution is drastic because it changes the font for the whole document but the libertine fonts are beautiful. In summary the solution comes down to using a combination of the siunitx and the libertine package. Example screenshots with and without libertine package are included below

\usepackage{libertine}
\usepackage{siunitx}

Examples

without libertine:enter image description here

with libertine:enter image description here

dalanicolai
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  • I've specified the source by mentioning the user that posted the answer I am referring to. Additionally I have explained how it led me to the solution I've posted here. – dalanicolai May 12 '20 at 19:58