Can the arev package provide boldsymbol math?

I'm trying out the arev package to see how it handles sans-serif mathematics, particularly given that this document pegs it as the only available free sans-serif font with a matching mathematics font, other than the bog-standard CM-Bright, and I ran into a warning I can't get rid of,

LaTeX Font Warning: Font shape OMS/zavm/b/n' undefined
(Font)              using OMS/zavm/m/n' instead on input line 7.


which is apparently triggered by using boldsymbol maths such as

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\usepackage{arev}

\begin{document}
$$\boldsymbol\omega$$
\end{document}


Is this warning inevitable? If not, then how can one sidestep it? If it is, then why is this, what does it mean, and how bad is it?

• Well, the package says \SetSymbolFont{symbols}{bold}{OMS}{zavm}{b}{n}, but omszavm.fd doesn't define it (for the simple reason the bold font in OMS encoding does not exist at all). – egreg Sep 28 '17 at 17:45

No, it cannot. The package says

\SetSymbolFont{symbols}{bold}{OMS}{zavm}{b}{n}


but the omszavm.fd file only contains

\DeclareFontFamily{OMS}{zavm}{}

\DeclareFontShape{OMS}{zavm}{m}{n}{
<-> zavmr7y
}{}


The suffix y corresponds to the OMS encoding in Karl Berry’s naming convention; there is no zavmb7y.tfm file in the TeX tree. Unless you build one, with the corresponding .pfb file, there is no chance of getting bold symbols.

The warning can be silenced by saying

\SetSymbolFont{symbols}{bold}{OMS}{zavm}{m}{n}


after having loaded the package.

It means that a bold version of the OMS-encoded font doesn't exist. This won't affect the \omega but e.g. \in or \infty. You can print a glyph table for the OMS-encoding with fonttable:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\usepackage{arev,fonttable}

\begin{document}
$\omega \in \infty$

\mathversion{bold}
$\omega \in \infty$

\xfonttable{OMS}{zavm}{m}{n}

\end{document}


You can avoid the warning by explicitly telling LaTeX to use the non-bold version also with \mathversion{bold}:

 \SetSymbolFont{symbols}      {bold}{OMS}{zavm}{m}{n}