How do I write a solid plus sign?

Question

How do I write a solid plus sign, like the American Red Cross symbol/logo?

I'm a novice, so I'm not very good at going to CTAN archive and downloading and installing business -- it doesn't work half the time. So it would be nice if it doesn't involve too exotic packages.

Edit : I would like to use it in math mode.

Answer 1

Package pifont provides several crosses via font ZapfDingbats, including a solid version:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pifont}
\usepackage{color}
\begin{document}
\textcolor{red}{\ding{58}} \ding{54} \ding{60}
\end{document}

Answer 2

For such a geometric symbol the picture mode is sufficient; you can add an argument in order to parameterize the size.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pict2e,xcolor}

\newcommand{\fplus}[1][black]{%
  \begingroup\leavevmode\color{#1}%
  \setlength{\unitlength}{1em}%
  \linethickness{.33em}%
  \begin{picture}(1,1)
  \put(0,0.5){\line(1,0){1}}
  \put(0.5,0){\line(0,1){1}}
  \end{picture}%
  \endgroup
}

\begin{document}

\fplus

\fplus[red]

\end{document}

Answer 3

_{No answer is complete without tikz!}

With tikz:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newcommand{\fplus}[1][black]{%
  \tikz\draw[#1,line width=1em] (0,0) -- (1,0)(0.5,0.5) -- (0.5,-0.5);
}

\begin{document}

\fplus

\fplus[red]

\end{document}

Answer 4

Compile the following with XeLaTeX:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor,fontawesome}
\begin{document}
\textcolor{red}{%
  \tiny\faPlus \quad \scriptsize\faPlus \quad \footnotesize\faPlus \quad \small\faPlus \quad%
  \normalsize\faPlus \quad%
  \large\faPlus \quad \Large\faPlus \quad \LARGE\faPlus \quad \Huge\faPlus}
\end{document}

Answer 5

If you just want a fat plus sign, which need not be identical to the American Red Cross logo, a pure Unicode (LuaLaTeX) solution is possible. You just need a font that contains either the ✚ symbol (U+271A Heavy Greek Cross) or, perhaps preferably, the ➕ symbol (U+2795 Heavy Plus Sign).

Here’s an example using the (too?) heavy greek cross symbol from the free font DejaVu Sans:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{unicode-math}

\setmainfont{DejaVu Sans}
\setmathfont{DejaVu Sans}

\newcommand\fplus{\mathrel✚}

\begin{document}

Some simple(?) math: $2 \fplus 2 \neq 4$

\end{document}

This has the advantage that you can copy and paste the text from the resulting PDF document without losing the cross symbol.

Answer 6

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontenc}
\newcommand*\arc{{\fontfamily{pbk}\fontseries{db}\selectfont+}}
\begin{document}
\arc\ versus+
\end{document}

Answer 7

\documentclass[margin=1mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{bbding}
\begin{document}
\Plus
\end{document}

Edit: To use in both text and math mode:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{bbding}
\usepackage{amstext}
\def\MPlus{{\ensuremath{\scriptscriptstyle \text{\Plus}}}}
\begin{document}

Text mode: 2\MPlus2  

Math mode: $2\MPlus2$

\end{document}

BTW, without any package, why not two rules?

\documentclass{article}
\def\RPlus{\rule[0.165em]{.5em}{.165em}\hspace{-.33em}\rule[0em]{.165em}{.5em}\,}
\begin{document}
Text mode: 2\RPlus2\par  
Math mode: $2\RPlus2$
\end{document}

Edit 2:

As Emil Jeřábek commented, the spacing in math mode can be improved using \mathbin{} ensuring that is the same that in other operators.

On the other hand, \Plus of bbding is a big symbol, and the symbol made with two rules was arbitrary set to .5em with no depth. If you want obtain a size and position similar to the normal `+, in the second case simply change the values for the rules.

For the \Plus of bbding package, one solution is use \raisebox{} and \scalebox{}. In the following MWE the custom symbol with huge font is overlapped with the normal + in red, to test the result easily:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{bbding}
\usepackage{amstext,graphicx,color}
\def\MPlus{\ensuremath{\mathbin{\raisebox{-.1em}{\scalebox{.67}{\Plus}}}}}
\def\RPlus{\ensuremath{\mathbin{\rule[.13em]{.66em}{.22em}\hspace{-.44em}\rule[-.08em]{.22em}{.66em}\,}}}

\begin{document}

\verb|\Plus|: $2\mathbin{\text{\Plus}}2+2$ 

\verb|\MPlus|: $2\MPlus2+2$ 

\verb|\RPlus|: $2\RPlus2+2$ 

\Huge
$2 \MPlus\color{red}+ 2$

$2 \MPlus\color{red}\hspace{-1em}+ 2$

\end{document}

Edit: for the sake of completeness, another solution using the drm font:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[symbolsonly]{drm}
\begin{document}
${\text{\textgreekcross}}3$
\end{document}