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17-Peridot
October 21, 2022
Solved

φ vs.Φ

  • October 21, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 4836 views

I have just noticed that the lower case φ is on a different key than the capital Φ. Is this on purpose? Has anybody noticed other mismatches?

 

Raiko

 

P.S. Running Prime 8 on a Win 10 machine

Best answer by Werner_E

I guess it was done on purpose and while I am using a German keyboard, too, I don't think it has to do with different national keyboard layouts.

The capital Phi we get by "F" followed by Ctrl-G.

Werner_E_1-1666352731377.png

Pressing "f" and Ctrl-G gives us

Werner_E_2-1666352756304.png

which indeed is some sort of lower case phi, but sure not the one I would prefer.

 

To get the desired lower case phi we have to use "j" and Ctrl-G, as you probably found out yourself

Werner_E_3-1666352779455.png

If you look for the Greek alphabet in Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griechisches_Alphabet#Klassische_Zeichen) you can see that the lower case phi preferred by Prime is indeed listed as being a variant to the"normal" one we would prefer.

This said I sure would appreciate PTC to exchange the keyboard shorts for the two different lower case phi.

 

But then it may indeed be a case of national differences. I notice that in LaTeX you get the "ugly" phi by writing \phi and the "normal" one by using \varphi. So "our" phi is considered being the variant in LaTeX.

So maybe in the US the phi preferred by Prime is the "standard" one ?? But then I ask myself why real Mathcad uses "our" standard phi, which IMHO also is much less easy to confuse with the large Phi than the one preferred by Prime.

4 replies

24-Ruby III
October 21, 2022

 Hi Raiko,

 

Please specify which keyboard layout are you using?

Raiko17-PeridotAuthor
17-Peridot
October 21, 2022

I'm using a German keyboard layout

Werner_E25-Diamond IAnswer
25-Diamond I
October 21, 2022

I guess it was done on purpose and while I am using a German keyboard, too, I don't think it has to do with different national keyboard layouts.

The capital Phi we get by "F" followed by Ctrl-G.

Werner_E_1-1666352731377.png

Pressing "f" and Ctrl-G gives us

Werner_E_2-1666352756304.png

which indeed is some sort of lower case phi, but sure not the one I would prefer.

 

To get the desired lower case phi we have to use "j" and Ctrl-G, as you probably found out yourself

Werner_E_3-1666352779455.png

If you look for the Greek alphabet in Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griechisches_Alphabet#Klassische_Zeichen) you can see that the lower case phi preferred by Prime is indeed listed as being a variant to the"normal" one we would prefer.

This said I sure would appreciate PTC to exchange the keyboard shorts for the two different lower case phi.

 

But then it may indeed be a case of national differences. I notice that in LaTeX you get the "ugly" phi by writing \phi and the "normal" one by using \varphi. So "our" phi is considered being the variant in LaTeX.

So maybe in the US the phi preferred by Prime is the "standard" one ?? But then I ask myself why real Mathcad uses "our" standard phi, which IMHO also is much less easy to confuse with the large Phi than the one preferred by Prime.

Raiko17-PeridotAuthor
17-Peridot
October 21, 2022

Yes, the non-standard ϕ can easily be mixed up with the diameter sign Ø. I do however prefer the proper (read: classical) φ for obvious reasons.

 

25-Diamond I
October 21, 2022

@Raiko wrote:

Yes, the non-standard ϕ can easily be mixed up with the diameter sign Ø. I do however prefer the proper (read: classical) φ for obvious reasons.

 


Fully agreed on and I sure prefer the "proper" phi, too.
But I won't expect PTC to change the behaviour in Prime.

24-Ruby IV
October 22, 2022

Es gibt auch die russische letter Ф

23-Emerald IV
October 23, 2022

I don't see any differences with good old Mathcad:

LucMeekes_0-1666546889749.png

Maybe in a version later than 11 they switched f and j?

(And in Prime they went back to the situation of Mathcad 11. Then it might be linked to static unit checking 🙂 )

 

Luc

25-Diamond I
October 23, 2022

Maybe in a version later than 11 they switched f and j?

This seems to be the case.

Here is Mathcad 15

Werner_E_0-1666551488223.png