Text FormattingOne command for "bold" both in text and math mode

Information and discussion about LaTeX's general text formatting features (e.g. bold, italic, enumerations, ...)
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Alextorm
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Joined: Sun Nov 21, 2010 7:30 pm

One command for "bold" both in text and math mode

Post by Alextorm »

How can I define one new command to have the text formatted in bold both in math and in text mode?
Last edited by Alextorm on Tue Nov 23, 2010 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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svend_tveskaeg
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One command for "bold" both in text and math mode

Post by svend_tveskaeg »

Why a single command? I would simply use \textbf for bold text and \mathbf for bold mathematics.
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yoriz
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One command for "bold" both in text and math mode

Post by yoriz »

I agree it can be useful sometimes. I sometimes put the following in my preamble:

Code: Select all

\let\oldtextbf=\textbf
\renewcommand\textbf[1]{{\boldmath\oldtextbf{#1}}}
This code adds an additional \boldmath call to the \textbf command, making all math within a \textbf{} bold. Of course, if you don't want to overwrite \textbf, you can define a new command:

Code: Select all

\newcommand\allbold[1]{{\boldmath\textbf{#1}}}
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Alextorm
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Re: One command for "bold" both in text and math mode

Post by Alextorm »

I had in mind something like an "if-then" construction ("if math environment do math bold, if text environment do text bold"), but yoriz solution is just perfect for me.

Thanks to all.
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localghost
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One command for "bold" both in text and math mode

Post by localghost »

Alextorm wrote:I had in mind something like an "if-then" construction ("if math environment do math bold, if text environment do text bold"), but yoriz solution is just perfect for me.[…]
You can implement it in exactly that way.

Code: Select all

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

\newcommand*{\genbf}[1]{\ifmmode\mathbf{#1}\else\textbf{#1}\fi}

\begin{document}
  \genbf{In-line text}
  \[
    \genbf{Math}
  \]
\end{document}
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