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I am just working on a document (a series of exercises for one of my classes), which uses both the SI and US customary unit systems (different exercises use different systems). I am trying to typeset the units in a consistent way. I am using the excellent siunitx package, and add the US units manually, however, it feels sort of strange to write things like \DeclareSIUnit\inch{in}. Does anybody have any good way of handling a situation like this?

(I could just use ConTeXt, but I want to take advantage of the beamer class.)

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If you're uncomfortable with the command names, why not \let\DeclareUSUnit\DeclareSIUnit and \let\US\SI and then you can declare and typset the US units with those commands. We can call this the therapeutic solution. :-) –  Alan Munn Jan 24 '12 at 3:46
@AlanMunn: I like that! :) –  Jan Hlavacek Jan 24 '12 at 3:51
Ok, I'll add it as an actual answer. –  Alan Munn Jan 24 '12 at 3:53
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up vote 14 down vote accepted

Since the only real problem with the siunitx solution is the clash of names, it's simple enough to just create duplicate versions of the siunitx commands so that the semantics match the content:


\US{1}{\inch} is \SI{2.54}{\cm}
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OK, I have done that, and I feel much better now! Thank you. –  Jan Hlavacek Jan 24 '12 at 4:02
It's called \DeclareSIUnit because \DeclareUnit is too generic (biblatex also uses 'units'), not to put people off creating non-standard units :-) –  Joseph Wright Jul 18 '12 at 20:53
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