How can I write a spiral symbol?

Question

How can I get a spiral like

enter image description here

There seems to be a spiral-like unicode codepoint: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/aa5c/index.htm

I tried

\documentclass[varwidth=true, border=2pt]{standalone}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel} 
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
% Color
\usepackage{color}
\definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.95}

\DeclareUnicodeCharacter{43612}{\spiral}

%document
\begin{document}{\textcolor{lightgray}{a}}\spiral{\textcolor{lightgray}{b}}
\end{document}

but I got

! Undefined control sequence.
l.13 ...document}{\textcolor{lightgray}{a}}\spiral
                                              {\textcolor{lightgray}{b}}

edit: I know How to look up a symbol or identify a math symbol or character?. None of the answers gave me a spiral symbol.

Now that unicode codepoint calls \spiral but \spiral isn't defined. — Manuel, Mar 05 '15 at 16:12
can't you just save the image you posted as spiral.png then use \includegraphics[height=1em]{spiral} ? — David Carlisle, Mar 05 '15 at 16:58
@DavidCarlisle I thought there is probably a nicer solution (I am asking this question because people keep writing spirals on write-math.com - I don't need it myself) — Martin Thoma, Mar 05 '15 at 17:08
Unicode U+AA5C belongs to the Cham block, allocated for the Cham script (see http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UAA00.pdf). You may be possibly find a font containing it and then use its glyph for getting a graphics to include. — egreg, Mar 06 '15 at 10:05
You can try to find a spiral symbol in the comprehensive LaTeX symbol list (I haven't found any, but I didn't look very thoroughly): Note that the font that you use in the LaTeX document should contain this particular character. I don't think this is the case... — Bert Van Vreckem, Mar 06 '15 at 08:09

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 06 '15 at 21:31

I would imagine that if font samples are viewable, they're in the public domain. As such, a search for font with spiral symbol yields a host of ideas.

Below I've used the Altemus Spirals Regular font's PDF sample:

enter image description here

Then you can clip out the element you're interested in:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\newcommand{\spiral}[1][]{\includegraphics[
  height=.7\baselineskip,
  origin=c,% For rotation purposes, rotate around centre
  viewport=154mm 173mm 176mm 194mm,clip,
  #1% Any other graphicx options
  ]{altemus_spiral_regular}%
}
\begin{document}
{\setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt}\fbox{\spiral}}

\spiral{}
\spiral[angle=90]
\reflectbox{\spiral}

A regular \spiral{} together with text and even \spiral[angle=180] rotated.
\end{document}

Alternatively, if you have access to a font containing a spiral, you can use XeLaTeX or LauLaTeX directly.

Henri Menke · Answer 2 · 2015-03-06T22:10:03.220

I downloaded the SVG Outline from the link you provided and exported it to a TikZ path using Inkscape. Here is the result after some adjustments by hand:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newcommand\spiral{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}[y=.009ex,x=.009ex,yscale=-1]
    \path[fill] (74.2500,379.5469) -- (62.4375,373.3594) .. controls
      (83.4375,365.2031) and (99.6563,356.1563) .. (111.0938,346.2188) .. controls
      (122.5313,336.2813) and (131.0625,324.9375) .. (136.6875,312.1875) .. controls
      (142.3125,299.4375) and (145.1250,284.4375) .. (145.1250,267.1875) .. controls
      (145.1250,256.6875) and (141.9375,247.5000) .. (135.5625,239.6250) .. controls
      (129.1875,231.7500) and (121.7813,226.3125) .. (113.3438,223.3125) .. controls
      (104.9063,220.3125) and (95.6250,218.8125) .. (85.5000,218.8125) .. controls
      (75.3750,218.8125) and (66.0937,220.3125) .. (57.6562,223.3125) .. controls
      (49.2187,226.3125) and (41.8125,231.7500) .. (35.4375,239.6250) .. controls
      (29.0625,247.5000) and (25.8750,256.6875) .. (25.8750,267.1875) .. controls
      (25.8750,277.6875) and (27.3750,286.9687) .. (30.3750,295.0312) .. controls
      (33.3750,303.0937) and (38.1563,308.9063) .. (44.7188,312.4688) .. controls
      (51.2813,316.0313) and (59.2500,317.8125) .. (68.6250,317.8125) .. controls
      (73.6875,317.8125) and (77.5782,316.7813) .. (80.2969,314.7188) .. controls
      (83.0156,312.6563) and (85.2187,309.7500) .. (86.9062,306.0000) .. controls
      (88.5937,302.2500) and (89.4375,297.3750) .. (89.4375,291.3750) .. controls
      (89.0625,288.3750) and (88.4063,285.6563) .. (87.4688,283.2188) .. controls
      (86.5313,280.7813) and (85.0313,278.9063) .. (82.9688,277.5938) .. controls
      (80.9063,276.2813) and (78.3750,275.6250) .. (75.3750,275.6250) .. controls
      (72.9375,275.6250) and (70.5469,277.1250) .. (68.2031,280.1250) .. controls
      (65.8594,283.1250) and (63.7500,288.4219) .. (61.8750,296.0156) --
      (57.6562,295.8750) .. controls (55.5937,295.8750) and (54.0937,295.4063) ..
      (53.1562,294.4688) .. controls (52.2187,293.5313) and (51.7500,292.5000) ..
      (51.7500,291.3750) .. controls (51.7500,286.5000) and (52.6875,281.7187) ..
      (54.5625,277.0312) .. controls (56.4375,272.3437) and (59.2500,268.5000) ..
      (63.0000,265.5000) .. controls (66.7500,262.5000) and (70.8750,261.0000) ..
      (75.3750,261.0000) .. controls (80.6250,261.0000) and (85.4063,262.1250) ..
      (89.7188,264.3750) .. controls (94.0313,266.6250) and (97.4063,270.0937) ..
      (99.8438,274.7812) .. controls (102.2813,279.4687) and (103.5000,285.0000) ..
      (103.5000,291.3750) .. controls (103.5000,299.6250) and (102.3750,306.5625) ..
      (100.1250,312.1875) .. controls (97.8750,317.8125) and (94.0313,322.5937) ..
      (88.5938,326.5312) .. controls (83.1563,330.4687) and (76.5000,332.4375) ..
      (68.6250,332.4375) .. controls (57.3750,332.4375) and (47.0625,329.8125) ..
      (37.6875,324.5625) .. controls (28.3125,319.3125) and (21.5625,311.5313) ..
      (17.4375,301.2188) .. controls (13.3125,290.9063) and (11.2500,279.5625) ..
      (11.2500,267.1875) .. controls (11.2500,254.0625) and (14.2500,241.9687) ..
      (20.2500,230.9062) .. controls (26.2500,219.8437) and (35.1563,211.3125) ..
      (46.9688,205.3125) .. controls (58.7813,199.3125) and (71.6250,196.3125) ..
      (85.5000,196.3125) .. controls (99.3750,196.3125) and (112.2187,199.3125) ..
      (124.0312,205.3125) .. controls (135.8437,211.3125) and (144.7500,219.8437) ..
      (150.7500,230.9062) .. controls (156.7500,241.9687) and (159.7500,254.0625) ..
      (159.7500,267.1875) .. controls (159.7500,287.4375) and (156.5625,304.7813) ..
      (150.1875,319.2188) .. controls (143.8125,333.6563) and (134.0625,346.1250) ..
      (120.9375,356.6250) .. controls (107.8125,367.1250) and (92.2500,374.7656) ..
      (74.2500,379.5469) -- cycle;
  \end{tikzpicture}%
}

\begin{document}

\Huge A\spiral B
\LARGE A\spiral B
\Large A\spiral B
\large A\spiral B
A\spiral B
\small A\spiral B
\footnotesize A\spiral B
\scriptsize A\spiral B
\tiny A\spiral B

\end{document}

Even though you don't want to use XeLaTeX, this might be useful to someone else. The Code2000 font (shareware with odd license) and Noto Sans Cham possess this particular character. You may use it like

\fontspec{CODE2000.TTF}꩜

or

\fontspec{CODE2000.TTF}^^^^aa5c

Here is a comparison of the fake TikZ symbol with the one from Code2000 and from Noto Sans Cham:

Because Noto Sans Cham only covers the Cham range of Unicode the Latin letters are missing and replaced by rectangles.

I've just added this to my symbol database: http://www.martin-thoma.de/write-math/symbol/?id=1704 - thank you for creating the solution! — Martin Thoma, Mar 27 '15 at 15:36

How can I write a spiral symbol?

2 Answers2

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