How to make certain mathematical characters be written as bold by default?

Question

In a notebook, when writing \[RightVector] over a variable I always end up bolding it to make it more visible. But it'd be easier if it could be set up to bold that character by default.

I haven't ventured into setting key bindings yet (just starting out), but I'm wondering if it's possible to set the combination EscvecEsc to turn on bolding, insert the appropriate symbol, then turn off bolding. If there's an even easier way, that'd be even better.

Answer 1

Yes, you can use InputAliases to style the replacements as you wish. I explained how to make auto replacements in this answer, but that was for a more specialized purpose.

As a simple example, you can do something like:

SetOptions[SelectedNotebook[], InputAliases -> 
    {"foo" -> MakeBoxes@Row[{
        Style[foo, FontColor -> Red, FontWeight -> Bold, 
            FontSlant -> Italic, FontFamily -> "Verdana"],
            \[VeryThinSpace]
        }]
    }
]

Now if you type EscfooEsc, it will show up as a bold, italic red foo.

Answer 2

Perhaps you can use the following alias instead:

CurrentValue[EvaluationNotebook[], {InputAliases, "vec"}] = OverscriptBox[
    StyleBox["\[SelectionPlaceholder]", FontWeight->Bold],
    "\[RightVector]"
];

Then, using the following key strokes: Esc v e c Esc Tab b produces:

where the letter b is bolded.