How to make a small $\varhexagon$ in latex?

Question

I would like to have a command that shrinks down the size of $\varhexagon$ from the wasysym package in latex to a very small size.

In principle, $\tiny \varhexagon$ does what I want, but apparently the command "tiny" is not allowed in math mode.

Is there a way to circumvent this?-Note that \scriptscriptstyle does not seem to give the same size as \tiny.

In short, I want a command that does the same as $A_{\tiny \varhexagon}$ but does not use the illegal command \tiny.

@CarLaTeX it is not a duplicate, since none of the suggestions gives precisely the same size as \tiny. — J.Doe, Mar 20 '19 at 06:42

Mico · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-20T07:03:22.630

Indeed, \tiny is a text mode command and thus is not allowed in math mode.

What you may be looking for is

\newcommand\tinyvarhexagon{\vcenter{\hbox{\scalebox{0.5}{$\varhexagon$}}}}

where \scalebox is a macro provided by the graphic package and \vcenter and \hbox are TeX "primitive". \tiny corresponds to a linear reduction in font size of 50%; hence the 0.5 scaling factor. With this definition, the tiny hexagon is centered vertically on the math axis. If you would rather have the resized symbol placed on the baseline, just omit the \vcenter{\hbox{...}} "wrapper".

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{wasysym} % for "\varhexagon" macro
\usepackage{graphicx}% for "\scalebox" macro
\newcommand\tinyvarhexagon{\vcenter{\hbox{\scalebox{0.5}{$\varhexagon$}}}}
   % ("\vcenter" and "\hbox" are TeX primitives)

\begin{document}
$a\varhexagon a$ $a\tinyvarhexagon a$ $a\scalebox{0.5}{$\varhexagon$} a$ 

$A_{\varhexagon}$ $A_{\tinyvarhexagon}$ $A_{\scalebox{0.5}{$\varhexagon$}}$
\end{document}

well, unfortunately it does not give the same size as tiny – J.Doe Mar 20 '19 at 06:39 — J.Doe, Mar 20 '19 at 06:39
@J.Doe - Please see the updated answer. – Mico Mar 20 '19 at 07:04 — Mico, Mar 20 '19 at 07:04

egreg · Answer 2 · 2019-03-20T09:13:08.900

You can load the font with a different scaling factor:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{wasysym} % just for comparison

\DeclareFontFamily{U}{wasysmall}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{wasysmall}{m}{n}{
  <-5.5> s*[0.75] wasy5
  <5.5-6.5> s*[0.75] wasy6
  <6.5-7.5> s*[0.75] wasy7
  <7.5-8.5> s*[0.75] wasy8
  <8.5-9.5> s*[0.75] wasy9
  <9.5-> s*[0.75] wasy10
}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{wasysmall}{b}{n}{
  <-5.5> s*[0.75] wasyb5
  <5.5-6.5> s*[0.75] wasyb6
  <6.5-7.5> s*[0.75] wasyb7
  <7.5-8.5> s*[0.75] wasyb8
  <8.5-9.5> s*[0.75] wasyb9
  <9.5-> s*[0.75] wasyb10
}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{wasysmall}{bx}{n}{ <-> sub * wasysmall/b/n}{}

\DeclareSymbolFont{wasysmall}{U}{wasysmall}{m}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{wasysmall}{bold}{U}{wasysmall}{b}{n}

\DeclareMathSymbol{\smallhexagon}{\mathord}{wasysmall}{57}

\begin{document}

{\tiny\varhexagon} $\scriptstyle\smallhexagon$ $A_{\smallhexagon}$

\end{document}

Note that loading wasysym is not required, I did just for the comparison.

You can avoid wasting a symbol font:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\DeclareFontFamily{U}{wasysmall}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{wasysmall}{m}{n}{
  <-5.5> s*[0.75] wasy5
  <5.5-6.5> s*[0.75] wasy6
  <6.5-7.5> s*[0.75] wasy7
  <7.5-8.5> s*[0.75] wasy8
  <8.5-9.5> s*[0.75] wasy9
  <9.5-> s*[0.75] wasy10
}{}

\newcommand{\smallhexagon}{\text{\usefont{U}{wasysmall}{m}{n}\symbol{57}}}

\begin{document}

$A_{\smallhexagon}$

\end{document}

If you just need the symbol to change size in subscripts, you can do in a different way:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{wasysym}

\DeclareMathSymbol{\mhexagon}{\mathord}{wasy}{57}

\begin{document}

$A_{\varhexagon}$ (wrong)

$A_{\mhexagon}$

\end{document}

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 20 '19 at 10:14

The amsmath package also provides the \text command which allows text mode commands inside math mode without warnings (see also the answer by @egreg above).

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{wasysym}

\begin{document}
A{\tiny\varhexagon}

$A_{\text{\tiny\varhexagon}}$
\end{document}

Result:

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 20 '19 at 09:55

As you can see, this approach works for both smaller text sizes as well as smaller math sizes.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{wasysym,scalerel,lmodern}
\newcommand\xvarhexagon{\scaleto{\varhexagon}{1.4\LMex}}
\begin{document}
$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon
\scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon
\scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\small$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon
\scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon
\scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\footnotesize$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon
\scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon
\scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\scriptsize$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon
\scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon
\scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\tiny$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon
\scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon
\scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\normalsize$x_{\xvarhexagon} =3\xvarhexagon y$
\end{document}

How to make a small $\varhexagon$ in latex?

4 Answers4