Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!umix!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!jcb
From: jcb@its63b.ed.ac.uk (J Bradfield)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: how can I get TeX bold superscripts?
Summary: by fiddling with families
Keywords: TeX
Message-ID: <1133@its63b.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 1 Apr 88 18:12:58 GMT
References: <1711@uhccux.UUCP>
Reply-To: jcb@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (J Bradfield)
Organization: Lab. for Foundations of Computer Science, Univ. Edinburgh, UK
Lines: 22

In article <1711@uhccux.UUCP> lee@uhccux.UUCP (Greg Lee) writes:
>When superscripts or subscripts appear in ordinary text, it would
>be nice if they were bold-faced in the context {\bf ...}.  But
> ...

The reason they aren't is because TeX sets \fam to -1 when maths mode
is entered. You could get round it like this:
\newcount\Fam
\Fam=-1
\def\bf{\fam\bffam\Fam\fam\tenbf}
\everymath{\fam\Fam}

which will mean that letters and numbers will be bold in maths in {\bf ...};
if you want other symbols to be bold as well, you have to work harder;
probably the easiest way is to do the above and also
\font\tenbsy=cmbsy10\font\sevenbsy=cmbsy7\font\fivebsy=cmbsy5
\def\bf{\fam\bffam\Fam\fam\tenbf
 \textfont0=\tenbf\scriptfont0=\sevenbf\scriptscriptfont0=\fivebf
 \textfont2=\tenbsy\scriptfont2=\sevenbsy\scriptscriptfont2=\fivebsy}
 
though you'll probably have to make cmbsy7 and cmbsy5 since they don't appear
to be on the standard distribution.