Here, the word beta will appear in italic without being converted to the beta character. Character Changes You can change font and point size with geqn in much the same way as with groff. The default setting is usually Roman 10 point. These reserved words affect only what immediately follows, so you must use braces if the area to be changed is more than a single block of characters. This sets the enclosed text in 16-point size.
Incremental changes are acceptable.
This makes it easy to format the equations however you wish. As you have seen, geqn is quite friendly and easy to use, especially if you are used to writing out equations longhand. You should play around with the system and learn the different features. There are more commands available within geqn, but the main ones have been shown to you. For more information, check the man pages or a good troff book that includes eqn.