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I'm trying to write "physics" in Greek by using "textgreek". It replaces the input text "k" with the cursive "kappa", but I want the more common non-cursive minuscule kappa.

\documentclass[a4paper,20pt]{book}

\usepackage[greek,portuges,brazilian]{babel}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage{textgreek}

\begin{document}

\textgreek{fusik'h}

\end{document}

That's what I get:

\textgreek{fusik'h} as in my output pdf.

But when I copy it and paste it here, it's how I would like it to look:

φυσική

So I guess it's something about character configuration.

I'm using Overleaf with LuaLatex.

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4
  • Welcome to TeX.SX! The two forms are just different typographic realizations of the same character, by two different fonts. Unicode has “Greek small letter kappa U+03BA” and “Greek kappa symbol U+03F0”, but their realizations are font dependent.
    – egreg
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 14:14
  • Welcome to TeX - LaTeX. This is the upright kappa provided by textgreek. If you don't like it you need another font.
    – cgnieder
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 14:14
  • That is the normal to write Greek. What you want is a sans-serif Greek font. Open sans might be a solution.
    – Bernard
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 14:20
  • BTW: if you use LuaLaTeX you should remove \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
    – cgnieder
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 14:38

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

Here's a comparison of the kappa in some freely available Greek fonts in TeX Live:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[LGR,T1]{fontenc}

\newcommand{\test}[1]{%
  #1: {\fontencoding{LGR}\fontfamily{#1}\selectfont κ}%
}

\begin{document}

\test{cmr}

\test{artemisia}

\test{gfsbaskerville}

\test{bodoni}

\test{complutum}

\test{udidot}

\test{neohellenic}

\test{porson}

\test{solomos}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Note that the same letter is rendered differently in different fonts: it's just a question of taste and design. There is no “official” shape of the glyph kappa that realizes in print the character kappa.

Unicode has the code point U+03F0 for GREEK KAPPA SYMBOL; it has similar code points for beta, epsilon, sigma, phi, pi, rho, theta. However it would be wrong to use U+03F0 for the letter (U+03BA).

Suppose you decide for Artemisia; you can do

\documentclass[a4paper]{book}

\usepackage[greek,brazilian]{babel}
%\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} % no longer needed
\usepackage{textgreek}

\DeclareFontFamilySubstitution{LGR}{\rmdefault}{artemisia}

\begin{document}

\textgreek{fusik'h}

\end{document}

Note that utf8x is not really recommended and even utf8 is no longer needed; also, you shouldn't load both portugues and brazilian.

The output would be

enter image description here

Oh, well! GFS Artemisia has a quite peculiar realization of the glyph eta!

However, the list is up there, decide by yourself.

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  • 1
    i'm no greek scholar, but people i've known who were, considered porson greek pretty close to "standard". from the appearance of the kappa, i can say it's the form i'm most familiar with.
    – barbara beeton
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 15:45
  • 1
    @barbarabeeton In the Italian schools where ancient Greek is taught, the “cursive” form is the commonly used one. I think it's similar to the open or closed form for theta: here we use the open one, whereas in the US the closed form is common.
    – egreg
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 16:29
  • 1
    ah, another "cultural difference". (when i took classes in modern greek, i also learned a cursive beta, which i have seen only rarely in print. it never got requested in a tex font that i know of. (certainly not for math.)
    – barbara beeton
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 16:48
  • I've chosen Porson because of Barbara comment about it looking more "standard", but Artemisia is really very beautiful and I may change my mind in favor of it.
    – Leonardo Castro
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 14:35

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