Related question: Less than symbol (<) appears as upside down “!”
Short answers:
- Use the fontenc package.
- Use math mode.
- Use the fontspec package.
- Use
\textgreater
. On older installations, you might need to load the textcomp
package to enable it, but this is not necessary on recent versions.
This specific example should really be in math mode, since n is a variable. But for completeness:
\documentclass{article}
% comment out to see inverted question mark in place of > in ``Regular'' entry.
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\begin{document}
\begin{itemize}
\item Say I have n > 1 apples (regular, with or without fontenc package).
\item Say I have \( n > 1 \) apples (math mode).
\item Say I have n \textgreater{} 1 apples (textcomp).
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

Also, the math mode greater-than sign is a bit heavier than the text symbols.
$...$
:Say I have $n > 1$ apples
. – Jake Jan 25 '12 at 0:04\( math \)
or\[ math \]
when using LaTeX and$ math $
or$$ math $$
when using plain TeX. – uli Jan 25 '12 at 0:12