\pounds and \textsterling produces a dollar sign?

Question

I'm just trying to put a "£" sign in my document, but I can't get it to work.

My packages:

\usepackage[math]{iwona}         
\usepackage{amsmath,amsfonts}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{algorithm,algorithmic}
\usepackage{xspace}
\usepackage{subfigure}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage{lscape}
\usepackage{listings}

\pounds and \textsterling both produce a dollar sign ("$"). I'm using pdflatex.

Answer 1

As described in I've just been asked to write a minimal example, what is that? in such cases it is best to remove half of the used packages until the error disappears to track down the package which causes it. In your case the error seems to be caused by the iwona font. The wrong sign seems to be caused by the wrong font encoding. You should use \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} together with iwona to avoid such things.

This works:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[math]{iwona}
%\usepackage{amsmath,amsfonts}
%\usepackage{graphicx}
%\usepackage{algorithm,algorithmic}
%\usepackage{xspace}
%\usepackage{subfigure}
%\usepackage{url}
%\usepackage{lscape}
%\usepackage{listings}

\begin{document}

\pounds

\textsterling

\end{document}

Answer 2

iwona does have a £ sterling sign. (for example 0xbf in the t1 encoding tables). however, £ sterling in ot1 encoding is a booby-trap: in roman font, the relevant character produces $, in italics it produces £.

i don't know what iwona thinks of as its default encoding, but i would expect that \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} would solve the problem.

no doubt there are other encodings that will achieve this, but t1 seems ok

Answer 3

This has worked for me:

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\textsterling

Answer 4

The following command worked for me:

$\pounds$