Commands to change appearance

We've seen a little of how to access various symbols using control sequences and we mentioned the \em command to emphasise text, but we didn't see how to use them. We look here at commands that change the appearance of the text.

Each of the control words here is a directive rather than a control sequence that accepts an argument. This is because potential arguments consisting of text that wants to be emboldened or emphasised are very large, and it would be a nuisance to have to enclose such an argument in argument-enclosing braces.

To delimit the area of text over which one of these commands has effect (its scope) we make that text into what is called a group. Groups are used extensively in LATEX to keep effects local to an area, rather than affecting the whole document. Apart from enhancing usability, this also in a sense protects distinct parts of a document from each other.

The LATEX commands for changing type style are given in table [*], and those for changing type size are given in table [*]. Commands for selecting fonts other than these are not discussed here.


Table: Commands for selecting type styles
\rm Roman   \it italic   \sc CAPITALS
\em Emphasised   \sl slanted   \tt typewriter
\bf boldface   \sf sans serif      


Each of the type style selection commands selects the specified style but does not change the size of font being used. The default type style is roman (you are reading a roman style font now). To change type size you issue one of the type size changing commands in table [*], which will select the indicated size in the currently active style. The release of LATEX 3.0 (the present version is 2.09) will see the New Font Selection Scheme in place as a standard feature. This makes font matters much easier to deal with.

– Gavin Maltby, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa gmaltby@unpcs1.cs.unp.ac.za, maltby@unpsun1.cc.unp.ac.za Any opinion expressed is mine and mine alone. ——————————————————————