Fonts & Character Sets ⇒ Scripted lower-case 'a'

[thomasTC]

Hello,

I'm writing a rather large paper, and I've begun to run out of symbols. Specifically, I need a "new" way to type 'a' in my equations - and I figured that i calligraphed or scripted a would be just the thing. I know that $\mathcal{A}$ would give me an uppercase scripted A, however, I really need it to be a lower case 'a'.

I've looked through 'The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List', but have only found a phonetic 'a', which is not really satisfactory.

I would appreciate any advice greatly.

Best regards,
Thomas

PS. I'm unsure if this topic belongs more in the math subforum rather than the font subforum. I apologuize if I have placed it wrongly.

[frabjous]

Consider using the Chancery font. There's no package or predefined command for this font, but it's one of the standard postscript fonts that your LaTeX distribution almost certainly has access to, and you can define a command for it, taking some tips from the Comprehensive LaTeX symbol guide:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\DeclareMathAlphabet{\mathpzc}{OT1}{pzc}{m}{it}
\begin{document}
\[
    \mathpzc{a}
\]
\end{document}

Another option might be to use the calligra package as so:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{calligra}
\DeclareMathAlphabet{\mathcalligra}{T1}{calligra}{m}{n}
\begin{document}
\[
 \mathcalligra{a}
\]

\end{document}

[thomasTC]

Thank you for your reply frabjous,

I've tried your suggestions. However, I had hoped for something that had a more pronounced difference with the standard 'a', such that the two could be clearly distinguished. Hmm, maybe I should just think i terms of finding an entirely different symbol.

In any case, thank you frabjous.

[localghost]

[...] However, I had hoped for something that had a more pronounced difference with the standard 'a', such that the two could be clearly distinguished. Hmm, maybe I should just think i terms of finding an entirely different symbol. [...]

What about lowercase letters in Gothic type provided by amssymb? Also called German type, black letter or Fraktur.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}

\begin{document}
  \begin{align}
    a &\ne \mathfrak{a} \\
    b &\ne \mathfrak{b} \\
    c &\ne \mathfrak{c}
  \end{align}
\end{document}

Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[thomasTC]

Thank you for your reply Thorsten, I didn't know of the \mathfrak option.

My thesis-partner and I finally decided, that we didn't absolutely need it to be lower-case, and went with an upper case 'A' instead using the 'DeclareMathAlphabet' command suggested by frabjous:

Code: Select all

\DeclareMathAlphabet{\sll}{OT1}{pzc}{m}{it}

We use it with an upper-case 'A', and so it doesn't provide us with a lower-case solution, but we decided that we'd rather prioritize the distinction between different symbols.

Again, thank you both for your suggestions. Much appreciated!

-Thomas

[frabjous]

Did you try my second suggestion? Just my opinion, I guess, but I think it's pretty darn distinct from a normal 'a'.

[thomasTC]

I did try your second suggestion as well. I've been looking around since then, and I suppose I must admit now, that I have probably had too high expectation for the "outworldlyness" of such a scripted lower-case 'a'. It just doesn't differ in the way that a regular 'A' differs from a '\mathcal{A}', and I suppose I thought that it would've - but that's probably not so easy with a lower-case letter I realize now.