Faster way of writing \mathbf

Question

Is there a quicker way of doing boldface in math mode instead of typing out \mathbf{} each time? (It gets cumbersome when you denote simple vectors with boldface...)

Answer 1

There's a really cheesy way of saving keystrokes that is no longer than Todd's answer but just as comprehensive as Yiannis's:

\documentclass{article}

\def\*#1{\mathbf{#1}}

\def\ab{ab}
\begin{document}
 $\*v, \*w, \*\ab, \*\Gamma$.
\end{document}

Explanation: a control sequence whose name is a non-letter doesn't require either spaces or braces after it (unless of course you want it to act on multiple tokens, like plain ab; a macro such as my \ab will work just fine, though).

Answer 2

Just to expand on Todd Lehman's answer, you can save a bit of typing in the definitions, by automating the creation of the commands:

The LaTeX kernel has a looping construct named \@tfor that enables parsing a list of characters. We leverage this to define commands of the form \Va..\Vz and \VA..\VZ automatically using \csname..\endcsname.

\@tfor\next:=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\do{%
  \def\command@factory#1{%
    \expandafter\def\csname V#1\endcsname{#1}
  }
 \expandafter\command@factory\next
}

The full MWE is shown below:

\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\@tfor\next:=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\do{%
  \def\command@factory#1{%
    \expandafter\def\csname V#1\endcsname{#1}
  }
 \expandafter\command@factory\next
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\[ a \cdot (\Vv \otimes \Vw) = (a \cdot \Vv) \otimes \Vw = \Vv \otimes (a \cdot \Vw) \]
\end{document}

To have bold greek, we can use a similar technique. This time we will put all the greek letters in a comma delimited list, like:

 alpha,beta,gamma,zeta...Alpha...Zeta

we can then iterate over it, this time using a @for loop, here is the amended minimal.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{mathpazo}

\makeatletter
\@tfor\next:=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\do{%
  \def\command@factory#1{%
    \expandafter\def\csname V#1\endcsname{\mathbb{#1}}
  }
 \expandafter\command@factory\next
}
\begin{document}
\[ a \cdot (\Vv \otimes \Vw) = (a \cdot \Vv) \otimes \Vw = \Vv \otimes (a \cdot \Vw) \]

\def\greekvectors#1{%
 \@for\next:=#1\do{%
    \def\X##1;{%
     \expandafter\def\csname V##1\endcsname{\boldsymbol{\csname##1\endcsname}}
     }
   \expandafter\X\next;
  }
}

\greekvectors{alpha,beta,iota,gamma,lambda,nu,eta,Gamma,varsigma}

 $\VGamma\Viota\Valpha\Vnu\Vnu\Veta\Vvarsigma$
\end{document}

Will output

Answer 3

What you want is not necessarily a faster way to write \mathbf{v}, but a faster way to obtain the vector v, yes?

In this case, I would define a set of very short letter-specific macros, one for each vector variable. For example:

\documentclass{article}
\newcommand{\Vu}{\mathbf{u}}
\newcommand{\Vv}{\mathbf{v}}
\newcommand{\Vw}{\mathbf{w}}
\newcommand{\Vx}{\mathbf{x}}
\newcommand{\Vy}{\mathbf{y}}
\newcommand{\Vz}{\mathbf{z}}
\begin{document}
\[ \|\Vx\| = \sqrt{\Vx_1^2 + \cdots + \Vx_n^2} \]
\[ a(\Vu+\Vv) = a\Vu + a\Vv \]
\[ a_1\Vv_{i_1} + a_2\Vv_{i_2} + \cdots + a_n\Vv_{i_n} = 0 \]
\[ a \cdot (\Vv \otimes \Vw) = (a \cdot \Vv) \otimes \Vw = \Vv \otimes (a \cdot \Vw) \]
\end{document}

Answer 4

You can define a \newcommand*{\V}[1]{\mathbf{#1}}, then you can just write \V{x}:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\newcommand*{\V}[1]{\mathbf{#1}}%
\begin{document}
    $\mathbf{x} \V{x}$
\end{document}

Answer 5

Define a command that takes an argument. No need to use a non-letter name: If your vector names are a single letter, you don't need to type the braces:

\newcommand\V[1]{\ensuremath{\mathbf{#1}}}

 \[ \V w = a\V v_0 + \V u  \]

You do need a space after \V (unless you use a non-letter instead of V).