[OS X TeX] Using Latin Modern fonts for symbols in PowerPoint

[David Watson]

On Jun 6, 2012, at 10:34 AM, Joshua Smith wrote:
> When I change the font of the a from Helvetica to LM Roman Slanted 10 Regular, it matches the a in the equation identically.  However, when I insert an alpha symbol from PowerPoint's Insert > Symbol menu and then change the font of the symbol to be LM Roman 10 Regular, it does not match the equation whatsoever.
> 
> Is there any way to achieve what I am interested in doing, other than to typeset the individual symbols in LaTeXiT and space the text so that I can insert images of the symbols in the proper place?

You may want to try using the Character Viewer.
You can get to it from the System Preferences -> Language & Text -> Input Sources.
You may also want to check the box "Show Input menu in menu bar" so that you can easily get to it.

Search for "alpha" in the Character Viewer, click on an appropriate symbol, and then click around in the Font Variation pane until you find that symbol in the Latin Modern font. If you have PowerPoint as the front application, double clicking on the proper symbol in the proper font should give you the results you want.
If you haven't installed the Latin Modern font outside of TeX, then you may need to find instructions to do so, but it sounds like you have already taken care of that.

There may be several different variants for a symbol like alpha, some "latin", some "greek", some "mathematical symbol alpha", so it may take a little hunting in the different panes to track down where the Latin Modern variant lives.