# [Blindmath] Font Bolding in Latex

Andrew Stacey andrew.stacey at math.ntnu.no
Wed Dec 1 06:00:34 CST 2010

Firstly, I recommend that you try this question on the website
http://tex.stackexchange.com

Secondly, the \bf solution is better implemented as \bfseries and done
without the braces.  Thus:

\begin{document}
\bfseries

\end{document}

(The point being that it is easier to override \bf later in the document.
For example, \bf \it does not produce bold-italic, but \bfseries \itshape
does.  The braces are for grouping, but as you intend to apply this to the
whole document, they aren't needed.)

Thirdly, I recommend that you choose a proper font and ask for the document to
be typeset using that font, rather than trying to work with the bold version
of the usual font.  There are too many things that could go wrong with just
saying \bfseries at the beginning - for example, maths mode won't be
affected by \bfseries.  It is a lot easier to simply declare at the
beginning of the document "Use font X" than to go through changing each
mathematics section to be boldface.

You can find a catalogue of fonts available in the standard LaTeX
distributions (for example, TeXLive) at: http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue look
particularly at the section "Fonts with math support".  Alternatively, it is
now possible to use any truetype or opentype font with LaTeX so if you have
a favourite font in one of those formats (which are standard on most operating
systems) then it should be possible to typeset the document using that.  Just
check that it covers the mathematical symbols (simplest way to check is
probably to just try it).

Hope this helps,

Andrew Stacey