# Importing single symbols in the sense of “How does the assignment work?”

I looked at Importing a Single Symbol From a Different Font and Handwritten R-like-kay. As a result, I downloaded the STIX package and looked up the highly welcome curly k \kay and found it to have the "coordinates" stix-mathscr (on page 37 of the newest documentation v1.1.1-latex from 2014/07/3); they are:

15x, ''6x  '3


What does this signify and how can I use it to import it? I guess the actual code would be similar to the answer in Importing a Single Symbol From a Different Font. Sorry, if the question is a bit redundant, but I think for non-experts the whole symbol importing business is pretty hard to understand.

# Method 1 (Recommended by egreg)

Thanks to egreg for providing a way to save a maths alphabet which even works with \boldmath:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\DeclareFontEncoding{LS1}{}{}
\DeclareFontSubstitution{LS1}{stix}{m}{n}
\newcommand*\kay{%
\text{%
\fontencoding{LS1}%
\fontfamily{stixscr}%
\fontseries{\textmathversion}%
\fontshape{n}%
\selectfont\symbol{"6B}}}
\makeatletter
% the current math version is saved in \math@version
\newcommand*\textmathversion{\csname textmv@\math@version\endcsname}
\newcommand*\textmv@normal{m}
\newcommand*\textmv@bold{b}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
$\kay$ {\boldmath$\kay$}
\end{document}


# Method 2 (initial solution)

This is extravagant in terms of its use of maths alphabets since it wastes one for a single symbol. However, I'm leaving it here in case you can spare the alphabet. If you wanted to use multiple symbols from the same font, this would be the way to go.

\documentclass{article}
\DeclareFontEncoding{LS1}{}{}
\DeclareFontSubstitution{LS1}{stix}{m}{n}
\DeclareSymbolFont{stixsymbols}{LS1}{stixscr}{m}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{stixsymbols}{bold}{LS1}{stixscr}{b}{n}
\DeclareMathSymbol{\kay}{\mathalpha}{stixsymbols}{"6B}

\begin{document}
$\kay$ \boldmath$\kay$
\end{document}

• @egreg Well, it should really be your answer but thank you for all the advice. If it weren't for the ms and ns, I would probably prefer \usefont... ;). – cfr Nov 10 '14 at 23:35
• I dont know to which extent follow up questions should be posted here, but I wonder how to make this \kay "less italic" so that it fits better with the \ell of Computer Modern, which I wanted to use in the document. It should work similar to the fake italic. – w_w Nov 16 '14 at 23:58
• @Zonan Are you saying that you do not, in fact, want to use the character from Stix at all? You want to use a different 'k' from Computer Modern? I am not sure what you mean by 'the fake italic'. Computer Modern features real italics - not fake ones. It does not use faked characters, as far as I am aware, by default at all. – cfr Nov 17 '14 at 1:10
• I want to use it, what I mean is the following \documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article} \DeclareFontEncoding{LS1}{}{} \DeclareFontSubstitution{LS1}{stix}{m}{n} \DeclareSymbolFont{stixsymbols}{LS1}{stixscr}{m}{n} \SetSymbolFont{stixsymbols}{bold}{LS1}{stixscr}{b}{n} \DeclareMathSymbol{\kkk}{\mathalpha}{stixsymbols}{"6B} \DeclareMathSymbol{\jjj}{\mathalpha}{stixsymbols}{"6A} \begin{document} The $\kkk$ is more slanted than $k$, the $\jjj$ more than $j$ and so on. $\kkk\ell$ are different, too. \end{document} – w_w Nov 17 '14 at 11:24
• @Zonan The differences are features of the different font designs. The trick is to choose fonts for your document which complement each other. If your current selections aren't working, you should think about using different ones. (Techically, you could rotate the characters somehow, but then they would not sit correctly on the baseline and the spacing would not be correct.) I'm not really sure what you have in mind as a solution... i.e. what you are not trying to do. – cfr Nov 17 '14 at 13:56