# Directory macros/latex/contrib/mathalpha

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The MATHALPHA (*AKA MATHALFA) package

As of version 1.12, the name of the package mathalfa was changed to mathalpha. (When I made the first version over 10 years ago, 8.3 filenames were still preferred in a few older systems, leading to what might appear as an unfortunate error in English spelling.) This should make no difference in its usage---though the name is changed, it works the same under both names. On CTAN, though the package will be set up as mathalpha, an alias will find it under the name mathalfa. The documentation name has been changed to mathalpha-doc.{tex,pdf} so some changes in texdoc data and the like will be necessary.

This package provides a standard means of setting math alphabets
associated with the macros \mathcal, \mathbb, \mathfrak and \mathscr
and, where available, their bold counterparts \mathbcal (now \mathbfcal),
\mathbbb (now \mathbfbb), \mathbfrak (now \mathbffrak)and \mathbscr (now \mathbfscr.)
It mostly bypasses the usual fd and sty files used to load these
alphabets in order to allow each to be scaled independently and
without silently quantizing the sizes.

Current version: 1.143 2021-11-18

Version 1.143 fixes a problem where mathalpha would erase a prior choice of Blackboard Bold font, due to a code duplication that made a test false on the first round but true on the second.

Version 1.142 corrects for missing \fi in a number of \mathfrak definitions due, I think, to an erroneous mass copy and paste in 1.14.

Version 1.14 marks a rather major revision, incorporating a number of suggestions from Frank Mittelbach.
(a) A number of alphabets have been added, including bboldx (an extension of bbold Blackboard Bold) and several from the STIX and STIX2 fonts.
(b) Most of the original mathalpha internal worked by setting up the alphabets as Math Alphabets rather than as Symbol Fonts, thus limiting the coverage to the Roman alphabet and the digits, but being simpler and more "sixteen math families" friendly. The current mathalpha adds an option to select which setup to use, but this of course is not possible for a particular font unless the support files have been set up appropriately. This is worth doing only for fonts that are sufficiently rich in characters lying outside the range of ordinary alphanumerics---dotlessi, dotlessj, Greek letters and other math symbols, for example. This is a work that will remain in progress for some time.
(c) There are new options to choose alphabets only from the bold versions, potentially freeing up a math family.
(d) I changed the name of the macro of bold version of the math alphabets to be close to those used in unicode math, changing from \mathbcal to \mathbfcal, \mathbscr to \mathbfscrb, \mathbfrak to \mathbffrak and\mathbbb to \mathbfbb. In most cases, I \let the old version to the new ones in order to not disrupt old work.

Version 1.13 changes the behavior under the option scr, first letting \mathscr to \relax, in case it was previously defined. This corrects a misbehavior under newtxmath 1.6 and newpxmath 1.4. (*)Thanks Evan Couch.)

Version 1.12 Name of package changed from mathalfa to mathalpha.

Version 1.11 adds the option scr=kp to point to kpfonts script alphabet. It also introduces a new name for the package, though you may call by either name, whichever is less offensive to you.

Version 1.10 adds the option bb=dsserif to point to the new DSSerif font.

Version 1.09 adds two more calligraphic/script alphabets, both upright---txupr is based on the math calligraphic font from the TX fonts, and boondoxupr is derived from the stix math script fonts, version 1.1.

Version 1.08 adds two more alphabets---bb=libus sets blackboard bold to the double-struck alphabet from LibertinusT1Math, and cal=stix sets the calligraphic alphabet to the one in stix-mathcal.pfb.

msharpe at ucsd dot edu

This work may be distributed and/or modified under the
conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either