Greek typography

 Typography

    The Greek letter forms used in maths are often different from those used in Greek-language text: they are designed to be used in isolation, not connected to other letters, and some use variant forms which are not normally used in current Greek typography.
    The OpenType font format has the feature tag 'mgrk' "Mathematical Greek" to identify a glyph as representing a Greek letter to be used in mathematical (as opposed to Greek language) contexts.
The table below shows a comparison of Greek letters rendered in TeX and HTML. The font used in the TeX rendering is an italic style. This is in line with the convention that variables should be italicized. As Greek letters are more often than not used as variables in mathematical formulas, a Greek letter appearing similar to the TeX rendering is more likely to be encountered in works involving mathematics.
Greek letters
Name TeX HTML
Name TeX HTML











Alpha \Alpha \, \alpha \, Α α
Digamma \digamma \, Ϝ ϝ











Beta \Beta \, \beta \, Β β
Zeta \Zeta \, \zeta \, Ζ ζ











Gamma \Gamma \, \gamma \, Γ γ
Eta \Eta \, \eta \, Η η











Delta \Delta \, \delta \, Δ δ
Theta \Theta \, \theta \, \vartheta \, Θ θ ϑ











Epsilon \Epsilon \, \epsilon \, \varepsilon \, Ε ϵ ε
Iota \Iota \, \iota \, Ι ι




















NameTeXHTML
NameTeXHTML
NameTeXHTML
Kappa\Kappa \, \kappa \,Κ κ
Omicron\Omicron \, \omicron \,Ο ο
Upsilon\Upsilon \, \upsilon \,Υ υ
Lambda\Lambda \, \lambda \,Λ λ
Pi\Pi \, \pi \, \varpi \,Π π ϖ
Phi\Phi \, \phi \, \varphi \,Φ ϕ φ
Mu\Mu \, \mu \,Μ μ
Rho\Rho \, \rho \, \varrho \,Ρ ρ ϱ
Chi\Chi \, \chi \,Χ χ
Nu\Nu \, \nu \,Ν ν
Sigma\Sigma \, \sigma \, \varsigma \,Σ σ ς
Psi\Psi \, \psi \,Ψ ψ
Xi\Xi \, \xi \,Ξ ξ
Tau\Tau \, \tau \,Τ τ
Omega\Omega \, \omega \,Ω ω

Concepts represented by a Greek letter

Αα (alpha)

Ββ (beta)

Γγ (gamma)

Δδ (delta)

Εε (epsilon)

Ϝϝ (digamma)

  • Ϝ is sometimes used to represent the digamma function, though the Latin letter F (which is nearly identical) is usually substituted.

Ζζ (zeta)

Ηη (eta)

  • η represents:

Θθ (theta)

Ιι (iota)

Κκ (kappa)

Λλ (lambda)

Μμ (mu)

Νν (nu)

  • ν represents:
    • frequency in physics in hertz (Hz)
    • Poisson's ratio in material science
    • a neutrino
    • kinematic viscosity of liquids
    • stoichiometric coefficient in chemistry
    • dimension of nullspace in maths

Ξξ (xi)

Οο (omicron)

  • Ο represents:
    • big O notation (may be represented by an uppercase Latin O as well)

Ππ (pi)

Ρρ (rho)

Σσ (sigma)

Ττ (tau)

Υυ (upsilon)

  • Υ represents:
    • an elementary particle

Φφ (phi)

Χχ (chi)

Ψψ (psi)

Ωω (omega)

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