[OS X TeX] Installing mbboard

[Michael Sharpe]

On Dec 4, 2013, at 6:24 PM, Don Green Dragon <fergdc at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Somewhere I read about this font program `mbboard’ which is a BlackBoard type of font but has both lowercase characters and digits in addition to uppercase characters. Currently I have available a BlackBoard font but it only provides uppercase letters.
> 
> Since I’m not sure which provides which here is the collection of packages that I have in my prelude:
> 
> \usepackage{amssymb}	% allows AMS symbols -- ESSENTIAL
> \usepackage{latexsym}	% allows LaTeX symbols
> \usepackage{amsfonts}	% allows AMS fonts
> %\usepackage{eucal}		% experimental -- may not need [mathscr] option below
> \usepackage[mathscr]{eucal}	% use \mathcal & \mathscr fonts -- CALligraphic & SCRipt
> 					% \mathscr{...} ignores lowercase and digits
> 					% \mathcal{...} transforms lowercase and digits into garbage
> \usepackage{mathrsfs}	% allows nice math script characters -- if not included, then the call
> 					% \mathscr{ABC} produces  Calligraphic-like chars too similar
> 					% to those produced by \mathcal{ABC}. Lowercase & digits ignored
> \usepackage{mathabx}	% allows use of \dotseq, \coloneq, \rightsquigarrow
> \usepackage{amscd}		% allows Commutative Diagrams
> %\usepackage{amsxtra}	% allows use of 'extra' math accents
> %\usepackage{mbboard}	% allows blackboard chars for upper, lower, digits - NOT FOUND
> 
> If I uncomment the last line and typeset, then I receive the error message:
> 
> ! LaTeX Error: File `mbboard.sty' not found
> 
> So I went to CTAN, found and downloaded a file «mbboard.zip"  (108 KB) which unzipped produced  a directory «mbboard" in my Downloads directory. This directory contains one file «mbboard.html" which does not tell one how to install the software and two directories:
> 
> 	source     and      texinputs
> 
> which contain
> 
> doncarvel:~/downloads/mbboard$ ls
> mbboard.html	source		texinputs
> doncarvel:~/downloads/mbboard$  ls source
> COMP		mbbbase.mf	mbbgrkup.mf	mbbromlg.mf	mbbx17.mf
> COMPILE		mbbcr10.mf	mbbheb10.mf	mbbromlo.mf	mbbx5.mf
> mbb10.mf	mbbcrkdr.mf	mbbhebdr.mf	mbbromup.mf	mbbx6.mf
> mbb12.mf	mbbcrklo.mf	mbbhebma.mf	mbbromxl.mf	mbbx7.mf
> mbb17.mf	mbbcrkup.mf	mbbhebrw.mf	mbbromxu.mf	mbbx8.mf
> mbb5.mf		mbbdigit.mf	mbbhebvw.mf	mbbsc10.mf	mbbx9.mf
> mbb6.mf		mbbdrivr.mf	mbbi10.mf	mbbsl10.mf	mbbxbold.mf
> mbb7.mf		mbbextra.mf	mbblight.mf	mbbsmcdr.mf
> mbb8.mf		mbbgr10.mf	mbbpunct.mf	mbbsymbl.mf
> mbb9.mf		mbbgrkdr.mf	mbbr10.mf	mbbx10.mf
> mbbaccnt.mf	mbbgrklo.mf	mbbrbx10.mf	mbbx12.mf
> doncarvel:~/downloads/mbboard$ ls texinputs
> mbboard.dcl	mbboard.sty	mbboard.tex	mbbtest.tex	testmac.tex
> 
> The above shows the missing file mbboard.sty but I don’t know what to do with all the above.
> 
> Suggestions?
> 
> 
> don green dragon
> fergdc at shaw.ca
> 

If you want Blackboard Bold upper and lower case as well as digits, the STIX symbols are very well done and will give much better on-screen results than metafont based fonts. The easiest way to use the STIX I know of to use the STIX BB in an arbitrary choice of math fonts is to say

\usepackage[bb=boondox]{mathalfa}

after loading your math package.

Michael