Greek symbols in text

Licence

This work may be distributed and/or modified under the conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3 of this license or any later version.

Identification
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesPackage{textalpha}
[2010/08/04 v0.1 macros for Greek letters in text]

Abstract

Provide a set of \text* macros for Greek letters outside math.

Changelog:

2010-06-16

0.1

initial version

Motivation

By default, the \alpha -- \Omega macros for Greek letters

In Greek text fonts with the LGR font encoding, letters are accessible by a Latin transcription.

This package provides a set of macros that can be used to access Greek symbols from a font in LGR encoding (e.g. the CB fonts) without the need for an explicite font-encoding switch.

The macro names follow the established scheme to prepend \text* to the Adobe glyph name (if it exists) or the corresponding math-macro, so \textalpha -- \textOmega prints α – Ω.

This is done using NFSS default definitions as explained in the fntguide (section 5.3).

Attention

While the macros work reasonably well for single letters, the automatic font-encoding switches behind the doors destroy the kerning between the letters.

Text composites (replacement of accent+character with a pre-composed character) work in LGR, but not in other encodings (due to the forth-and-back font encoding switch).

Therefore, Greek text should be written with the help of babel, setting the language to either greek or polutonikogreek.

Implementation

This package requires the extended font encoding definitions:

\input{lgrxenc.def}

Greek Alphabet

Define the text* marcos as default for all font encodings:

\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textAlpha}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textBeta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textGamma}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textDelta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textEpsilon}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textZeta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textEta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textTheta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textIota}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textKappa}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textLambda}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textMu}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textNu}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textXi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textOmicron}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textPi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textRho}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textSigma}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textTau}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textUpsilon}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textPhi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textChi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textPsi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textOmega}{LGR}
%
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textalpha}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textbeta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textgamma}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textdelta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textepsilon}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textzeta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\texteta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\texttheta}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textiota}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textkappa}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textlambda}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textmu}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textnu}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textxi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textomicron}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textpi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textrho}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textsigma}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textvarsigma}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\texttau}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textupsilon}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textphi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textchi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textpsi}{LGR}
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textomega}{LGR}

Diacritics

Diacritics are defined via "named" macros in lgrxenc.def. Make them default in any encoding:

\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\Dasia}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\Psili}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\Tonos}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\Varia}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\Perispomeni}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\Dialytika}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\<}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\>}{LGR}
%
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\DasiaOxia}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\DasiaVaria}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\DasiaPerispomeni}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\PsiliOxia}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\PsiliVaria}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\PsiliPerispomeni}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\DialytikaTonos}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\DialytikaVaria}{LGR}
\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\DialytikaPerispomeni}{LGR}