Finding Symbols And Characters In Latex Documents – A Comprehensive Guide
Locating Special Typography in LaTeX
LaTeX provides access to a wide variety of special symbols, characters, punctuations marks, and typographic elements beyond the standard alphabet. Locating these elements within LaTeX can sometimes be challenging for new and intermediate users. This comprehensive guide aims to help LaTeX users efficiently find and insert special symbols and characters into their documents.
We will cover common methods for displaying special typography such as Greek letters, math symbols, punctuation marks, accents, dingbats, and international characters. Readers will learn LaTeX commands, packages, and fonts that enable special characters as well as troubleshooting solutions.
Understanding LaTeX Escaping and Commands
Many special characters cannot be typed directly into a LaTeX document and require escaping or commands. LaTeX reserves certain characters like the backslash and percent sign for internal use. To display them visibly, escape sequences are needed.
For example, to typeset a backslash, use the \\ escape sequence. To include a percent sign, use \%. LaTeX interprets the backslash in these sequences as instructions to print the next character instead of using it for a command.
LaTeX also defines text formatting commands that enable special symbols. For example, \textemdash prints an em-dash. LaTeX has pre-defined commands for many common characters that may be difficult or impossible to type with standard keyboards.
Manuals of Common LaTeX Escapes and Commands
- Backslash: \\
- Percent sign: \%
- Em-dash: \textemdash
- Right arrow: \rightarrow
Learning common LaTeX escape sequences and commands through manuals will build familiarity locating special characters for documents.
Viewing Available LaTeX Symbol Packages
While LaTeX defines some special characters internally, most extra symbols must be accessed through packages. Packages bundle related functionality to LaTeX's core abilities. This modularity keeps the core system lightweight.
Hundreds of packages exist providing different special symbols. For example, the "wasysym" package contains weather and astronomical dingbats. The "marvosym" package provides characters from Martin Vogel's Symbol font like sound symbols.
Viewing available packages helps identify relevant special characters for a LaTeX project. Modern LaTeX distributions organize packages by topics into manual sections. Users can browse section names signalling helpful packages like:
- Punctuation marks: accents, cjkpunct
- Dingbats: pifont, marvosym
- International scripts: arabtex, indonesian
Skimming package manuals illustrates the wide range of special symbols within easy reach.
Activating a LaTeX Symbol Package
To activate a package in a LaTeX document:
- Add \usepackage{[options]{package}} to the preamble
- Access its symbols using new commands it defines
Searching Online LaTeX Symbol Collections
Hundreds more special symbol packages beyond those bundled with LaTeX distributions exist online. Comprehensive LaTeX symbols collections like Detexify, Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List, LaTeX Symbols, and Table Generator aggregate these community packages.
These online databases display symbol tables with corresponding package names and LaTeX commands. Users can browse by symbol shape and subject like math, game, or music. Search functions also locate symbols by descriptions like "quarter note" or "handwriting."
If a required special character cannot be found through local LaTeX packages, online symbol collections may provide relevant community packages. Their broad aggregations showcase the true extent of available LaTeX symbols.
Inserting Online Symbols into Documents
To use an online symbol in a local document:
- Note the providing package
- Install package from CTAN or TeX Live utility
- Add package with \usepackage
- Insert symbol using its listed command
Inserting Greek Letters and Math Symbols
Symbols for mathematical and scientific notation like lower-case Greek letters and integral signs need no special packages in LaTeX. These characters display straightforwardly in math environments.
To enable Greek letters, use the \alpha, \beta, \gamma commands etc. For math symbols, commands like \int (integral), \infty (infinity) and \neq (not equal to) are available. Complete math character mappings exist in LaTeX math mode documentation.
However, display styles of math symbols differ in inline versus display math mode due to different required spacing. Remember to wrap larger formatted equations in equation environments.
Example Greek Letters and Math Symbols
Inline math mode:
- \(\alpha\) \(\beta\) \(\infty\)
Display math mode:
\<\begin{equation}\label{eqn:solved} x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a} \end{equation}\>
Displaying Punctuation Marks and Accents
Punctuation characters like curved quotes and overscores aid readability for humanist or linguistic documents. LaTeX provides these glyph variants through input encoding packages and accented letter commands.
For quotation styles, the CSquotes package replaces straight quotes with language-appropriate directional variants. Accent marks like umlauts and acute accents format by preceding letters with \", \, and other diacritic commands.
Combined letter and punctuation commands enable exotic glyph combinations. With available encoding packages, rare characters from Old English, Gothic, runic, and medieval scripts display for niche typographic needs.
Example Punctuation Marks and Accents
Curved quotes and accents:
- ``Curved quotes and expanded characters''
- \H{o} \t{oo} \u{b} \v{n}
Medieval runes and ligatures:
- \AE ligature
- \DJ, \NG, \AE{}
Importing Font Glyphs and Dingbats
Beyond text characters, fonts also define shaped icons, pictograms, borders, and decorative glyph sets known as dingbats. Importing display fonts into LaTeX provides these elements for structured documents.
The fontspec package for XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX adds font support beyond LaTeX's Computer Modern default. Any system font internally providing special glyphs, dingbats, emoji or other symbols becomes usable.
For maximum document control, directly specify non-standard font glyph code points with character name escape sequences using the \symbol command.
Importing Special Font Glyphs
- Identify font with useful special glyphs
- Install and enable with fontspec package
- Insert glyphs using \symbol escape sequence
Coding International Characters and Diacritics
LaTeX provides solid support for Western European languages but less extensively handles certain Asian, African, or other international scripts. Polyglossia and hyph-utf8 enable UTF-8 text encoding for expanded Unicode symbol access.
CJK, Indic, Arabic, and Ethiopian script packages add options for typesetting documents in these calligraphies. Combined with input encoding packages, LaTeX documents can mix virtually any world scripts and special diacritics like tone marks alongside European characters.
For maximum international glyph support, LuaLaTeX and XeLaTeX should format documents instead of pdfLaTeX. These modern engines connect LaTeX to system fonts with expansive Unicode coverage.
Inserting Uncommon International Characters
- Choose document font with glyph support
- Enable UTF-8 input encoding
- Use combining diacritic commands
Embedding External Fonts with Rare Glyphs
If special symbols remain unavailable through installed LaTeX packages and fonts, consider embedding external font files. Any TrueType or OpenType font with associated metrics can integrate with modern LaTeX engines.
For example, the STIX fonts provide glyphs for professional mathematical typesetting unrivaled by system fonts. Music publishing packages can embed the premium Bravura font for precise musical notations.
Specialized icon and symbol fonts like Pictograms, Wingdings, and Comic Sans also become insertable for unique document styling through font embedding.
Adding External Fonts to LaTeX
- Convert TTF/OTF font with ttf2tfm utility
- Generate font metrics with ttf2afm
- Install font metrics for system or document use
- Access font using fontspec or specialized packages
Troubleshooting Issues with Uncommon Characters
When issues emerge displaying special glyphs, confirm necessary encoding packages activate in the LaTeX preamble. If reshaping curves, ligatures, or composite characters cause problems, simplify text snippets to isolate the problematic glyphs.
Review font support for missing characters and consider substituting similar Unicode symbols accessible without embedding new fonts. When troubleshooting international scripts, determine if combining diacritics and mark positioning need adjustment.
As a last resort, document needs may require migrating from pdfLaTeX to LuaLaTeX/XeLaTeX for enhanced font and Unicode support. Maintain legacy packages and macros where possible when converting between engines.
Special Character Troubleshooting Checklist
- Verify encoding packages enable
- Check font glyph coverage
- Inspect composite glyph positioning
- Substitute simpler Unicode variants
- Consider engine migration as necessary
Summary of Best Practices for Special LaTeX Characters
This guide has broadly introduced common methods for accessing special typography in LaTeX documents. We covered LaTeX escapes, symbol packages, math characters, punctuation packages, display fonts, international scripts, external font embedding, and troubleshooting techniques.
By learning the discussed tools, LaTeX users can Insert virtually any unusual symbol into their documents. Remember to tap encoding packages before fonts or external files when hunting for special glyphs. And ensure added symbol packages only enable when their characters print.
Following these best practices will help efficiently locate and insert special characters to meet diverse document projects' typography needs.
