# [texhax] Using fonts

Michael Barr barr at barrs.org
Sun Apr 18 14:03:43 CEST 2004

 While doing texnical editing on a paper for journal publication, I came
on a number of Latex font warnings about not using \scriptsize in math
mode.  Changing it to \scriptstyle cured that, but it should not
normally be necessary to use these commands at all.  What the author had
done was put in a number of definitions of the form
\newcommand{\x}{\textit{\textbf{x}}}
in the preamble and a number of things like
$$A_{\scriptsize{\x}}$$

Eventually, blundering around (using new fonts is not something I have
done much of), I discovered that
\DeclareMathAlphabet{\mathbit}{OT1}{cmr}{bx}{it}
\newcommand{\x}{\mathbit{x}}
worked quite nicely and is likely the official way of doing this. But I
would still like to know what is the systematic way of discovering that
this is how to do it.  Looking at cmr.fd, I guessed that {bx}{it} was
likely the right combinations of parameters, but where would I actually
find this information?

Michael Barr