# Distinguish between $v$ and $\nu$

I'm writing a manuscript (100 page) and I used many times the symbols $v$ and $\nu$ in mathematical mode. For example my equations have the form:

$\frac{u+v}{\nu}=0$ and the pdf gives the following:


Unfortunately, after compiling, the two symbols $v$ and $\nu$ are very similar and it is very difficult to distinguish them.

Please can you help me to overcome this problem knowing that I can't change the symbol $v$ in 100 pages

• They seem distinguishable image-click here with the Computer Modern fonts. Can you tell something more about your setup? – egreg Apr 10 '17 at 16:07
• if using newtxtext and newtxmath there is a specific option varvw to help alleviate this problem. – Andrew Swann Apr 10 '17 at 16:20
• @egreg Im trying to put an image to what I obtained when I write $\frac{u+v}{\nu}$ – A H Apr 10 '17 at 16:36
• Please provide a MWE so we can see what class and packages you are using. – lblb Apr 11 '17 at 11:59
• @A H: A minimal working example (MWE) is one that produces your problem with only the relevant packages, so you wouldn't need most of the packages you listed. Creating a MWE is itself some work, but greatly appreciated for people tackling a question. – lblb Apr 11 '17 at 15:21

Judging from the image you probably have

\usepackage{mathptmx}


Replace it with

\usepackage{newtxtext}
\usepackage[varvw]{newtxmath}


and the output of

$\frac{u+v}{\nu}$


will be, with no other change to your document,

• I used this package \usepackage{mathrsfs} – A H Apr 10 '17 at 17:08
• @AH That's completely irrelevant. What document class are you using? – egreg Apr 10 '17 at 17:09
• @egred \documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{book} – A H Apr 10 '17 at 17:14
• @AH Please, add a small example to your question. – egreg Apr 10 '17 at 17:14

Using Computer Modern for v and \nu.

\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}
\DeclareSymbolFont{CMletters}{OML}{cmm}{m}{it}
\DeclareMathSymbol{\nu}{\mathord}{CMletters}{23}
\DeclareMathSymbol{v}{\mathord}{CMletters}{v}

• Alternatively, you could retain the standard newtxmath v, which is readily distinguishable from the Computer Modern \nu, in order to avoid introducing confusion between v and \upsilon. – Gavin R. Putland Oct 23 '18 at 8:47

I got the same problem, but since I did not want to make any changes (I wasnt sure if the proposed solutions would change anything in a finalised document, such as line-breaks, any slight changes of spacing, etc.), i preferred the following solution that solves the problem by adding a single line ("AtBeginDocument..."):

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{txfonts}

\AtBeginDocument{\mathcodev=\varv}

\begin{document}

A v' in math: $v$

A nu' in math: $\nu$

\end{document}