Bold text in LaTeX

Use \textbf{} to make text bold in LaTeX.

This is \textbf{bold text} in LaTeX.

The \textbf command

The \textbf{} command is the standard way to make text bold in LaTeX. Wrap any text inside the curly braces and it will render in bold weight.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}

This is normal text, and \textbf{this part is bold}.

\end{document}

Bold text in math mode

Inside math environments, \textbf doesn't work. Use \mathbf{} instead for upright bold, or load the bm package for bold italic (which preserves the math italic shape).

\usepackage{bm}  % in preamble

\begin{equation}
  \mathbf{F} = m\mathbf{a}        % upright bold
\end{equation}

\begin{equation}
  \bm{\alpha} + \bm{\beta} = \bm{\gamma}  % bold italic
\end{equation}

Bold across line breaks

You can bold text that spans multiple lines. LaTeX treats line breaks inside \textbf as spaces, not paragraph breaks.

\textbf{This is a long bold sentence that
continues on the next line in the source,
but renders as a single paragraph.}

Combining bold with other formatting

\textbf{\textit{Bold and italic text}}  % bold italic
\textbf{\underline{Bold and underlined}}  % bold underline

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