Is there any way other than \pmb to produce bold greek letters when mathptmx is used?

Question

I know that mathptmx does not contain bold symbols for greek letters in math mode, and the result of \pmb is too ugly. Is there a way to specify LaTeX to use CM fonts for bold greek letters when mathptmx is used?

Answer 1

To use Computer Modern for bold Greek letters, you can put the following into the preamble of your document:

\usepackage{amsmath}
\SetSymbolFont{letters}{bold}{OML}{cmm}{b}{it}
\SetSymbolFont{operators}{bold}{OT1}{cmr}{bx}{n}

To typeset a bold \Gamma, you can then write \boldsymbol{\Gamma}. That said, the result looks mixed because the regular weight of Times already looks pretty heavy compared to Computer Modern.

Answer 2

I have two suggestions:

1. isomath package. It has the ability to add similar functionality. But I'm not sure if it will work in this particular case. Neither I can provide the exact settings needed.
2. MathTime Professional font. It has bold math, and even extra bold math. But it's commercial. And other drawback is, some incompatibility with amsmath and related. That's in case you want to be able to easily switch to Computer Modern.