pzccal.sty: calligraphic math alphabet with Zapf Chancery

Licence

This work may be distributed and/or modified under the conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3 of this license or (at your option) any later version.

Identification
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesPackage{pzccal}
[2011/02/03 v0.1 Zapf Chancery calligraphic math alphabet]

The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List by Scott Pakin describes the use of Zapf Chancery as a mathematical alphabet that contains capital and small Latin letters as well as digits. This allows full coverage of the script Unicode Mathematical Alphabet with 8-bit LaTeX engines.

This package sets up the Zapf Chancery font as script (calligraphic) math alphabet \mathpzc. It provides options to scale the font and to configure the alias command name. By default, pzccal overwrites the predefined math alphabet command \mathcal.

Tip

The urwchancal package (developed independently and published less than a month after pzcal.sty) provides not only a style file but also virtual fonts solving problems with accents and spacing. Like pzcal, it provides both lowercase and capital Latin math script letters. It is highly recommended to use urwchancal.sty instead of pzcal.sty.

Options

Options are defined with the key=value interface provided by kvoptions:

\RequirePackage{kvoptions}

cmdname

The name of the math alphabet command alias (default \mathcal). An existing command is overwritten without asking.

\DeclareStringOption[mathcal]{cmdname}

mathcal, mathscr, mathpzc

For compatibility with eucal, the mathcal and mathscr options are equivalent to cmdname=mathcal and cmdname=mathscr. The option mathpzc prevents aliasing to a new name:

\DeclareVoidOption{mathcal}{} % this is the default
\DeclareVoidOption{mathscr}{\renewcommand{\pzccal@cmdname}{mathscr}}
\DeclareVoidOption{mathpzc}{\renewcommand{\pzccal@cmdname}{mathpzc}}

scaled

The Zapf Chancery font can be scaled with the scaled option. The default is to enlarge the font to get a matching size without making it too dark:

\DeclareStringOption[1.125]{scaled}

\ProcessKeyvalOptions*

Implementation

Scaling

Define the font family pzcm as a scaled variant of pzc:

\DeclareFontFamily{OT1}{pzcm}{}
\DeclareFontShape{OT1}{pzcm}{mb}{it}{<-> s * [\pzccal@scaled] pzcmi7t}{}

Setup

As suggested in The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List:

\DeclareMathAlphabet{\mathpzc}{OT1}{pzcm}{mb}{it}

Alias

Make the new alphabet available under the command specified by the cmdname option (default: overwrite“mathcal“):

\@namedef\pzccal@cmdname{\mathpzc}

References

Alternative LaTeX script fonts that might be useful in math:

Auriocus Kalligraphicus

http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/aurical/

Calligra

http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/calligra/

Jana Skrivana

http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/janaskrivana/

Vicentino

http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/vicentino/ (bitmap)