Reduce size of \bullet character in lists

Question

Example for a list using mdwlist:

\begin{itemize*}
\item First
\item Second
\end{itemize*}

The bullet symbol for the first level can be redefined with:

\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{$\bullet$}

It apparently uses a math environments symbol by default. I would like to reduce the size of it, but font size modifiers like \tiny seem to be invalid.

score 16 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 08 '11 at 21:14

16

For centering material vertically you can use \vcenter, but this only works in math mode. Thus you need to enter math mode twice:

\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{$\vcenter{\hbox{\tiny$\bullet$}}$}

answered Jan 08 '11 at 21:14

Hendrik Vogt

37,935

Well, this comes at last. The only disadvantage may be that it's not so friendly for most LaTeX users. How about \parbox[c]{.5em}{\tiny\textbullet}? It needs an extra width, but should be OK here. – Leo Liu Jan 09 '11 at 17:24

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 08 '11 at 16:41

3

\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{{\tiny$\bullet$}}

answered Jan 08 '11 at 16:41

Leo Liu

77,365

Thanks, that works, but it corrupts the vertical alignment of bullet and text. So I guess the font size should not be changed, instead I need another character with a smaller symbol. – None Jan 08 '11 at 18:24

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 08 '11 at 19:20

3

The suggestion to use \renewcommand{\labelitemi}{{\tiny$\bullet$}} actually seems to leave the alignment alone, in that the baseline of the bullet is the baseline of the text. If you'd like to raise it, though, you can use

\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{\raise .5ex\hbox{\tiny$\bullet$}}

answered Jan 08 '11 at 19:20

Phil Hirschhorn

8,942

This has the disadvantage that you have to do trial and error. – Hendrik Vogt Jan 08 '11 at 21:13

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 10 '11 at 15:50

In case that a tiny bullet is a specific demand, you could use the \textperiodcentered command from the textcomp package in conjunction with the enumitem package for a compact list.

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{textcomp}

\begin{document}
  \begin{itemize}[label=\textperiodcentered,nolistsep]
    \item First
    \item Second
  \end{itemize}
\end{document}

Reduce size of \bullet character in lists

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