# Greek text with the LGR font encoding

Copyright
  © 2010 Günter Milde
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 any later version.

Abstract

The lgrx bundle provides packages that help typesetting Greek symbols with 8-bit LaTeX in multi-lingual documents.

# News

2013-05-28

  The new package greek-fontenc provides a comprehensive LGR font encoding file `lgrenc.def`, that supersedes both this bundles `lgrxenc.def` and the minimal `lgrenc.def` that used to be part of babel-greek

2013-05-28

  The file `lgrenc.dfu` (support for Unicode input) moved to the greek-inputenc package.

2013-06-03

  `alphabeta.sty` enables Unicode input in math mode,

  `textalpha.sty` and `alphabeta.sty` require `lgrenc.def` from greek-fontenc instead of `lgrxenc.def`,

  `lgrxenc.def` now loads `lgrenc.def` and adds some backwards compatibility definitions.

Note

The TeXLive 2012 pre-release contained the Unicode definition file `lgrenc.dfu` in the documentation instead of the TEXPATH. To enable utf-8 support for Greek, update via tlmgr or place a copy in the TEXPATH «by hand». See http://tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2012-June/031757.html

# Files

LaTeX files:
  textalpha.sty

    Default text macros for Greek symbols independent of the current font encoding. Requires greek-fontenc, enhances greek-inputenc.

    Literal source: textalpha.sty.html

  alphabeta.sty

    Generic macros for Greek symbols in text and math. Requires `textalpha.sty`.

    Literal source: alphabeta.sty.html

  lgrxenc.def

    backwards compatibility file. New documents should use greek-fontenc’s `lgrenc.def` instead.

Documentation and test documents:
  textalpha-test.pdf

    The textalpha package, source textalpha-test.tex

  alphabeta-test.pdf

    The alphabeta package, source alphabeta-test.tex

  lgrxenc-test.pdf

    source lgrxenc-test.tex

# Components of the lgrx bundle

The lgrx bundle consists of the textalpha and alphabeta packages and the backwards compatibility file `lgrxenc.def`.

## Default text macros for Greek symbols

`textalpha.sty` makes the `\textalpha`, `\textbeta` … macros as well as the `\ensuregreek` command aviable in any font encoding. With the greek-inputenc package, Unicode input of Greek letters works in any font encoding, too.

However, in any font encoding except LGR:

- there is no kerning between Greek characters,

- composition of diacritics (like `\'"`) fails,

- accent macros do not select precomposed characters (pre-composed Unicode literals work fine).

See the literal source textalpha.sty.html and the example document textalpha-test.pdf for details on usage, limitations, and recommended workarounds.

## Generic macros for Greek symbols

`alphabeta.sty` allows you to use `\alpha`, `\beta`, … in both, text and math mode. For this, the math macros are redefined with the help of `\TextOrMath` from the standard package fixltx2e.

Unicode input of Greek letters works also in mathematical formulas.

See the literal source alphabeta.sty.html and the example document alphabeta-test.pdf for details.

## LGR font encoding definition file

`lgrxenc.def` was an alternative to the rudimentary LGR encoding definition file `lgrenc.def` that came with babel’s Greek support. It is now superseded by `lgrenc.def` from greek-fontenc but kept here for backwards compatibility.

## UTF-8 support for Greek

Moved to the greek-inputenc package.

# References

[fntguide]

  LaTeX3 Project Team, LaTeX 2ε font selection, 2005. http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/doc/fntguide.pdf

[encguide]

  Frank Mittelbach, Robin Fairbairns, Werner Lemberg, LaTeX3 Project Team, LaTeX font encodings, 2006. http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/doc/encguide.pdf

[greek-usage]

  Apostolos Syropoulos, Writing Greek with the greek option of the babel package, 1997. http://www.tug.org/texlive/Contents/live/texmf-dist/doc/generic/babel/greek-usage.pdf

[cbfonts]

  Claudio Beccari, The CB Greek fonts, Εὔτυπον, τεῦχος № 21, 2008. http://www.eutypon.gr/eutypon/pdf/e2008-21/e21-a01.pdf

[teubner-doc]

  Claudio Beccari, `teubner.sty` An extension to the greek option of the babel package, 2011. http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/teubner/teubner-doc.pdf

[lemberg2008]

  Werner Lemberg, Unicode support for the Greek LGR encoding, Εὔτυπον, τεῦχος № 20, 2008. http://www.eutypon.gr/eutypon/pdf/e2008-20/e20-a03.pdf