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In non-equation mode, using the normal font. How do I make the approximation sign that in mathematical mode is $\approx$?

Lars Abrahamsson
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    Why should it be a non mathematical mode? Please, give to us an example you are using it. Maybe what you want is $\text{foo}\approx \text{faa}$ (or simply foo $\approx$ faa). – Sigur Oct 15 '18 at 13:03
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    unless you are using luatex or xetex the normal text fonts will not have that character. If you are, and your main font does have the character, you can just use ≈ directly. – David Carlisle Oct 15 '18 at 13:09
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    or stack two tildes if you really want text mode: \raisebox{-0.7ex}{\textasciitilde}\hspace{-5pt}\raisebox{-1.0ex}{\textasciitilde} - note: not a serious suggestion, don't try this at home :) – Marijn Oct 15 '18 at 13:37
  • And of course \newcommand{\textapprox}{\hbox{$\null\approx\null$}}} – John Kormylo Oct 15 '18 at 14:10
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    @Sigur I thought it could be nice, just by the same reson that = exists both in mathematical mode and text mode. Maybe I was wrong. – Lars Abrahamsson Oct 15 '18 at 14:13
  • @DavidCarlisle Cool. But is that code-page-dependent? Like with the Swedish letters åäö that sometimes has to be written as \r{a}\"{a}\"{o}? – Lars Abrahamsson Oct 15 '18 at 14:15
  • @LarsAbrahamsson luatex and xetex always use UTF-8 input and TU (Unicode) font encoding so the issue does not arise but even in pdftex, you never need to use \r{a}\"{a}\"{o} although you can if it's more convenient, you can always input the letters as åäö – David Carlisle Oct 15 '18 at 14:21
  • @LarsAbrahamsson modern OpenType fonts have tens of thousands of characters, so it's easy to find ≈ in a text font, but the original (OT1) TeX fonts had 127 characters per font, and even the extended (T1) font encodings only have 256, so there simply isn't room to add math characters other than the most basic =+-\times – David Carlisle Oct 15 '18 at 14:24

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