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From: sean@castle.ed.ac.uk (S Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Abolition of Math Italic?
Message-ID: <7499@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 8 Dec 90 12:33:08 GMT
References: <1990Dec7.050746.11274@athena.cs.uga.edu>
Organization: Edinburgh University Computer Services
Lines: 33

mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu ( Michael A. Covington) writes:


> I am just starting to use LaTeX and do a lot of linguistics and
> formal logic. My idea of a formula is something like

>      $\exist x ~ donkey(x) \wedge owns(p,x)$

> with a lot of English words in it.

> Is there something simple I can do that will make LaTeX use
> regular italics rather than Math Italic in formulas?
> English words look oddly spaced when set in Math Italic.
> I know I can switch to regular italic in any particular
> instance using \it or \mbox as the case may be, but what I'd like
> is to make Math Italic go away, with one broad stroke.

Try this (from John Spivey's `zed.sty'):

% MATHCODES
%
% The mathcodes for the letters A, ..., Z, a, ..., z are changed to
% generate text italic rather than math italic by default. This makes
% generate text italic rather than math italic by default. This makes
% is set to "7000 (variable family) + "400 (text italic) + c.
%

\def\@setmcodes#1#2#3{{\count0=#1 \count1=#3
        \loop \global\mathcode\count0=\count1 \ifnum \count0<#2
        \advance\count0 by1 \advance\count1 by1 \repeat}}

\@setmcodes{`A}{`Z}{"7441}
\@setmcodes{`a}{`z}{"7461}