# Bold Greek letters are not as bold as Roman letters

This question was discussed here previously, but no answer is provided.

Greek letters are made bold using \boldsymbol, however they do not look bold at all compared to bold Roman letters, particularly they are within the text and if the text is also Roman.

Consider the following MWE:

\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}
%\usepackage{upgreek}
\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}
\usepackage[]{bm}

\begin{document}
\noindent
Bold Roman: $\textbf{M}$, $\textbf{a}$, $xyz$. These look OK.\\
Bold Greek: $\boldsymbol{\uppsi}xyz\boldsymbol{\psi}$. They do not look bold at all.
\end{document}


and the result is

Also consider the default font:

\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{upgreek}
%\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}
\usepackage[]{bm}

\begin{document}
\noindent
Bold Roman: $\textbf{M}$, $\textbf{a}$, $xyz$. These look OK.\\
Bold Greek: $\boldsymbol{\uppsi}xyz\boldsymbol{\psi}$. These are a little bit better but still not bold.
\end{document}


and the result is

Edit:

Here is an example text to see the characters better. To me, Roman characters are immediately catching the eye as bold, but not the Greek letters:

Is there a way to have "real" bold Greek letters?

Use of \pmb with Roman text (second line):

Use of \pmb with default text (second line):

Edit:

I have added Troys suggestion below. I think this look gives immeadiate impression of a matrix.

• they look quite bold to me, in any case it is the choice of the font designer to design how dark the bold face is compared to medium weight. You can not change this from tex other than by choosing a different font family that has a bolder bold. Dec 9, 2017 at 13:48
• Maybe: double print the Greek letter with a shift? Is there a way to do this in LaTeX? Dec 9, 2017 at 13:56
• yes sure the \pmb macro in amsmath will print the character 3 times with slight offsets but I'd never do that of (as here) there is a bold font available. Dec 9, 2017 at 13:57
• for example if you extend your example with \uppsi and \psi then the newtxmath one looks like this with the bold characters noticeably bolder than the non bold despite the following text saying they do not look bold. Dec 9, 2017 at 14:03
• @David: No wonder you do not recommend \pmb. See my updated question :). Dec 9, 2017 at 14:07

A nice solution adapted from another question:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}
\usepackage{pdfrender}

\newcommand*{\boldgreek}[1]{%
\textpdfrender{%
TextRenderingMode=FillStroke,%
LineWidth=.35pt,%
}{#1}%
}
\begin{document}
$\psi$
$\boldgreek{\psi}$
$\uppsi$
$\boldgreek{\uppsi}$
\end{document}


You can modify the line width to your liking to make the letters more/less bold.