On Overcoming the Conflict Between Lmodern and Bold Smallcaps When Compiling with Pdflatex

Question

I am working on a document which invokes both fontenc and lmodern, and ran into a problem with producing bold smallcaps.

I came across this post: How te get bold + small caps with latin modern or computer modern which offers a (Xelatex) solution with the fontspec package---but as I am invoking fontenc (and am compiling with pdflatex)---an adaptation of that solution to my situation would be out.

Nevertheless, after looking at the OP's MWE, I have obtained the following MWE:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{xcolor,lettrine}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} % Needed to make the letters folloiwng the lettrine boldface.
\input GoudyIn.fd
\newcommand*\initfamily{\usefont{U}{GoudyIn}{xl}{n}}

\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{fix-cm}
   \rmfamily
   %\DeclareFontShape{T1}{lmr}{b}{sc}{<->ssub*cmr/bx/sc}{}
   \DeclareFontShape{T1}{lmr}{bx}{sc}{<->ssub*cmr/bx/sc}{}

\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\LARGE
\lettrine[lines=3,loversize=.25]{\initfamily{T}}{\textbf{he}} 
\end{document}

which seems to work (though I have some questions):

Note: The OP makes use of both of commands: \DeclareFontShape{T1}{lmr}{b}{sc}{<->ssub*cmr/bx/sc}{} and \DeclareFontShape{T1}{lmr}{bx}{sc}{<->ssub*cmr/bx/sc}{}; though I have found that \DeclareFontShape{T1}{lmr}{bx}{sc}{<->ssub*cmr/bx/sc}{} alone works for me. (The only difference I see between the two is {b} vs. {bx}).

QUESTION: Can anyone tell me (when compiling with Pdflatex), the difference between the two; if both are needed for the purpose of obtaining bold smallcaps when \lmodern is invoked; and if, perhaps, there is a better way of accomplishing this than this approach which does seem to work without using fontspec, as I am precluded from so doing by the use of fontenc and pdflatex?

Thank you.

Answer 1

The b and bx forms of the command set what happens when you use \fontseries{b} and \fontseries{bx}, respectively. They stand for Bold and Bold Extended. (If a font has a bold condensed series, that is bc, and so on.) Neither Computer Modern nor Latin Modern has a non-extended bold face, so the LaTeX commands \textbf and \bfseries select bx.

Since some font packages use b and some use bx, it’s good practice to define both. This lets you change the font family without losing your bold formatting, whatever other fonts you might be using. In your own document, though, you control what formatting commands you use, and you can skip the b alias if you want.