Detexify

April 6, 2020

Detexify is a great resource if you want to find a common or perhaps an unusual symbol to insert in to your $\LaTeX$ document.

When you go to the Detexify website [1] you are presented with a box to draw your symbol in. For this context I have the symbols tab selected.

$detexify$

So in the example below I have attempted to draw pi $\pi$. You can see that the website has attempted to find symbols resemble the one I have drawn.

$detexify$

It works for all sorts of things as per the two examples below. You don't need to be that good at drawing the symbol as some can be pretty complex.

$detexify$

This also works the other way. You can enter the name and the website will try and find the corresponding symbol as per below. In this case I am using the classify tab.

$detexify$

In both cases the website will tell you which package you can find this symbol in, and which $LaTeX$ command to use. You can find the package on CTAN [5] for more information on how to use that package. Or you can find the documentation on TeXLive [6].

Hopefully this article is helpful and will help. It is also designed to complement the tutorials at Learn LaTeX [3] which is a new resource.

This article can also complement the upcoming 2020 release of TeX Live [6).

#LaTeX, #Detexify,#symbols,#drawing,#help,#resource,#ctan.