Strikethrough text

Question

I am writing an article in LaTeX 2e. Part of the article describes the Sieve of Eratosthenes, and I want to show examples of how multiples of a prime are removed from the sieve by showing them in a strikethrough font. How do I create a strikethrough font in LaTeX 2e?

For showing the Sieve of Eratosthenes in tikz this might be useful. — Peter Grill, Jun 04 '12 at 20:05
Related question for using \st{} with accented letters: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/160220/french-accents-in-hl-from-soul-package — giusti, Jul 16 '22 at 16:34

score 531 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 31 '21 at 21:43

531

I'm not quite sure what you mean with creating a strikethrough font. However, for striking through text horizontally see:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2663944/how-to-strike-out-inside-latex-equations

So with the ulem package this is:

\usepackage[normalem]{ulem}
\sout{Hello World}

With the soul package this is:

\usepackage{soul}
\st{Hello World}

enter image description here

The ulem package seems more up to date so I would use that.

edited Aug 31 '21 at 21:43

Michael Ohlrogge

219

answered Jul 21 '11 at 12:26

24

Soul is not available on my machine. I tried ulem. It worked, producing strikethrough text, but also converted emphasized text from italic to underline, which I do not want. So I added a \normalem declaration, and now everything works properly. Thanks! – Jul 21 '11 at 12:57
45

Just to clarify on the above comment- using the command "\usepackage[normalem]{ulem}" will prevent \emph from being changed, as stated in Section 1 of the documentation (http://mirrors.med.harvard.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/ulem/ulem.pdf) – obfuscation Feb 11 '13 at 13:29
5

Strangely enough soul seems to have trouble with non-ASCII characters (for instance UTF-8 French). – tiktak Jan 09 '14 at 20:41
19

The ulem package has the highly undesirable side-effect of redefining \emph{} to produce underlined text, rather than italic. (I guess "ulem" stands for something like "underlined emph".) – David Richerby Oct 21 '14 at 12:21
13

This didn't work for me... \sout{} is just underlining the text. – MichaelChirico Mar 17 '16 at 19:42
@tiktak: indeed, my workaround was to replace e.g. é with 'e – Anthony Labarre Apr 29 '20 at 12:22
41

I am amazed you need an extra package for such a basic function. – luchonacho May 26 '20 at 15:44
@MichaelChirico happened for me, too, until I noticed, that I used \sout in between dollar signs. Once removed, the underline changed to a proper strikethrough. – devbf Nov 17 '23 at 06:33
3

The ulem package no longer seems to be more up-to-date than soul. ulem was last updated in 2019. soul was last updated in 2023. Also, for what it's worth, soul is on the approved list for the ACM Publishing System (TAPS) and ulem isn't. – yig Jan 16 '24 at 02:12

score 66 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

66

There is also the cancel package:

\usepackage{cancel}
...
\cancel{text}

The solution to Diagonal strikeout starting too low and ending too high is another option to consider.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

Community

1

answered Jul 21 '11 at 15:16

Peter Grill

223,288

52

Is it possible to do strikeout without importing a package? – tommy.carstensen Mar 19 '15 at 16:38
4

@tommy.carstensen: Well a package is just a set of macros, so if you define the necessary macros then you don't need to import the complete package. I'd suggest you post a separate question as some others who are more familiar with Plain TeX can probably do a much better job. – Peter Grill Apr 06 '15 at 01:36
48

I am amazed you need an extra package for such a basic function. – luchonacho May 26 '20 at 15:44
\cancel{} fails with an error message: "! You can't use \/' in vertical mode.".\st{}` functions with the same inputs. I work with pdfTeX 3.141592653-2.6-1.40.22 (TeX Live 2022/dev/Debian) – Luís de Sousa May 23 '23 at 09:35
@LuísdeSousa: I suggest you port a new question with a fully compilable MWE that duplicates the problem including the \documentclass and the appropriate packages. – Peter Grill May 23 '23 at 20:16
I use $\cancel{x}$ with \usepackage{cancel} but it showed me error which is "! LaTeX Error: File `cancel.sty' not found. Type X to quit or to proceed, or enter new name. (Default extension: sty)"
help please. BTW i am using documentclass
– RIPAN DAS Nov 20 '23 at 14:10
@RIPANDAS: That error means that the package is missing. I suggest you update your packages. If you don't want to do that and only install the cancel package. – Peter Grill Nov 20 '23 at 23:49

score 31 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 21 '11 at 11:28

31

This is for within an equation (I got it off of another forum) and requires amsmath and ulem to be active. The strike is quite long, so using it next to an arrow is troublesome.

\text{\sout{$TEXT$}}

edited Nov 21 '11 at 11:28

Count Zero

17,424

answered Sep 08 '11 at 21:31

Sara P

319

2

And to make it work properly in math environment, use \text{\sout{\ensuremath{...}}}, which may be what you meant by $TEXT$ . Reference. – Rubens Oct 28 '14 at 06:45
3

This was very helpful. It works on my Texmaker. Thanks. Do you know how to make such a thing work for Math Stack Exchange? – KeyC0de Oct 09 '15 at 10:09
1

@Nikos You can use ~ between the text you want to strikeout, or \cancel when striking out equations. – Skeleton Bow Aug 15 '20 at 00:58

Strikethrough text

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