5

In an article, I saw an equation with a pictogram where one might typically find a Latin letter:

Branch and leaf as a symbol in an equation

How did they do it? How can I replicate this equation in my own document?

shadowtalker
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  • 2
  • 11

2 Answers2

8

The one symbol can be found in the package textcomp as \textleaf. In your preamble, just enter

\usepackage{textcomp}

and in the body of the document write \textleaf.

The other symbol can be found in the package phaistos as \PHplaneTree.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage{phaistos}
\newcommand\myleaf{\mbox{\textleaf}}
\newcommand\mytree{\mbox{\PHplaneTree}}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}

$\mytree^{\myleaf}$

\end{document}

enter image description here

I found that I had to put the two objects in their own boxes to get these symbols to work in math mode.

From the command line you can type

texdoc symbols-a4

to get a master document showing a variety of different symbols and the packages which provide them.

A.Ellett
  • 50,533
3

As addition to A.Elletts perfect answer:

If you want to use other symbols in order not copy the one from your PDF, you may get some inspiration here. There are many symbols included in the Unicode 6.0.

% arara: lualatex

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{fontawesome}
\def\faTree{\FA\symbol{"F1BB}}

\begin{document}
    \faLeaf
    \faTree % not yet part of the package
    \setmainfont{symbola.ttf}
    \symbol{"1F331}
    \symbol{"1F332}
    \symbol{"1F333}
    \symbol{"1F334}
    \symbol{"1F335}

    \symbol{"1F33F}
    \symbol{"1F341}
    \symbol{"1F342}
    \symbol{"1F343}
    \symbol{"1F384}
    \symbol{"2E19}
\end{document}

enter image description here

% arara: lualatex 

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{fontawesome}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage[bold-style=ISO]{unicode-math}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\newcommand*{\twig}{\reflectbox{\rotatebox{35}{\setmainfont{symbola.ttf}\symbol{"1F33F}}}}
\newcommand*{\leaf}{\ensuremath{\text{\faLeaf}}}

\begin{document}
In the following formula I will use a \twig{} and a \leaf{} combined to $\twig^\leaf$: 
\[
\mbfitY=f(\mbfitX)+\mbfscrE\approx\twig^\leaf_1(\mbfitX)+\twig^\leaf_2(\mbfitX)+\ldots+\twig^\leaf_m(\mbfitX)+\mbfscrE,\quad\mbfscrE\sim\mscrN_n(\mathbf{0}, \sigma^2 \mbfitI_n)
\]
\end{document}

enter image description here

LaRiFaRi
  • 43,807
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    Excellent, thank you. I actually don't like their particular choice of symbol because I feel they're too "chunky" and "round" and break up the flow of the equation. However I really like the idea of using symbols aside from the Greek/Latin alphabets, so a general solution is even better. I could also probably mess around with font sizes and macros to make these less conspicuous. – shadowtalker Sep 17 '14 at 11:56