Insert Greek letters in LaTeX - how it works

In LaTex you can write individual Greek letters, Greek text sections and even complete documents in the Greek alphabet. Different conventions apply to variables in formulas, physical units and body text. We'll show you how to write Greek.

Write Greek letters in LaTeX

In itself, inserting Greek letters in LaTeX documents is not difficult. But depending on the context, the letters should be formatted differently. You write variables in italics and with a space between two variables, units are always non-italic and body texts are non-italic and with normal character spacing. We have a solution for each of these cases:

• You can write individual Greek letters in math mode and in equations by writing them out with a backslash:
• The top two lines in the figure appear like this: $ \ theta $ and $ \ vartheta $
• Typically, characters are in italics in math environments. Large Greek letters are an exception.
• However, you can use italics to capitalize large Greek letters using "\ mathit": $ \ mathit {\ Theta} $
• The commands for all Greek letters can be found on Wikibooks, for example.
• Insert the Upgreek package in the preamble of your LaTeX document using "\ usepackage {upgreek}".
• Now you can put Greek letters "plain", ie not in italics: $ \ uptheta $, $ \ upvartheta $
• To write entire sections of text with Greek letters, load the "Betababel" package using "\ usepackage [ngerman] {betababel}". Now you can write "\ bcode {}" in the Greek area.
• In the picture you can see what the package does with the code "\ bcode {CHIP Online Practical Tips}".
• If you want your entire document to be written in the Greek alphabet, use the package "\ usepackage {betababel}" without the option "[ngerman]". As of now, the entire document is written in Greek.

We will explain how to format the text in LaTex further, for example changing the font size, inserting umlauts or changing the font, in further CHIP online practical tips.