Half fraction symbol in the style of pifont's xmark/cmark

Question

As noted in this answer, the pifont package provides a set of dingbats which includes a popular \xmark and \cmark pair as displayed below.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amssymb}% http://ctan.org/pkg/amssymb
\usepackage{pifont}% http://ctan.org/pkg/pifont
\newcommand{\cmark}{\ding{51}}%
\newcommand{\xmark}{\ding{55}}%
\begin{document}
\verb|\cmark|: \cmark \par
\verb|\xmark|: \xmark
\end{document}

$\cmark and \xmark$

How can I generate a fractional half symbol ($\frac{1}{2}$) of the same style that can be easily interpreted as some compromise between a tick and cross? I have included a mockup below, but I'm sure there is a better/more consistent font for the digits (the font in the mockup is Bush Script MT in bold and italics).

Welcome to TeX.SX! You can look into the Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List whether there is is such a symbol in some package. If there is a font that has this symbol already, you can load and use it if you use XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX easily. Finally, you could also create this on your own (be it using TeX directly or some other software). — Jasper Habicht, Sep 12 '23 at 10:49
Is this not exactly what my question is? To the best of my knowledge, this symbol does not exist. I do not know how to make it. Therefore I am asking here. Considering the \xmark and \cmark symbols are already extremely popular, I would imagine this would be useful to many people too should someone better at tex than me create it somehow. — Seraf Fej, Sep 12 '23 at 10:57
Sure, I was just adding some information. I wasn't sure whether you already took this into consideration or not. Also, you seem to know about a font that could be used to create this symbol (the one you used to create the image), but you did not state the name of it. — Jasper Habicht, Sep 12 '23 at 11:04
Oh apologies, I misread as that being a dismissal of the question to the effect of "just go create the symbol you want". Sure, I will add the name of the font (although, to my untrained eye, it doesn't seem quite right). — Seraf Fej, Sep 12 '23 at 11:08
No, your question is good! Thanks for adding the font name. Well Brush Script MT has a ½ sign that looks like this, maybe you can just use this? — Jasper Habicht, Sep 12 '23 at 11:16
Thanks! While I suspect a better solution might exist since the important point is to look like a natural, complementary symbol to those that already exist (i.e. the angle of the line should probably be identical), this is certainly better than any ideas I've had so far. I would suggest writing a short answer such that I can upvote and others will see a solution :) — Seraf Fej, Sep 12 '23 at 11:29

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 12 '23 at 12:00

Considering its hand-drawn style, it is probably not too easy to create a symbol like this from scratch. Therefore, I think your idea to use a font that more or less fits the style of the other two symbols is already quite good!

I found that the font Brush Script MT has a ½ sign that you could use as is. It might not be bold enough to fit the style of the symbols from the pifont package, but you can use the FakeBold feature provided by the fontspec package to adjust this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pifont}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\newcommand{\cmark}{\ding{51}}
\newcommand{\xmark}{\ding{55}}
\newcommand{\hmark}{{\bfseries\fontspec[AutoFakeBold=1.76]{BRUSHSCI.TTF}\kern-.1em\textonehalf}}
\begin{document}
\verb|\cmark|: \cmark \par
\verb|\xmark|: \xmark \par
\verb|\hmark|: \hmark \par
\end{document}

There is also the font Brush Script Std which does not have a ½ sign with the required style. But it has superscript digits, so you can stick together the ½ sign. The result is a bit different, of course:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pifont}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\newcommand{\cmark}{\ding{51}}
\newcommand{\xmark}{\ding{55}}
\newcommand{\hmark}{{\bfseries\fontspec[AutoFakeBold=1.5]{BrushScriptStd.otf}\kern-.1em ¹\kern-.1em/\kern-.2em\raisebox{-.33em}{²}}}
\begin{document}
\verb|\cmark|: \cmark \par
\verb|\xmark|: \xmark \par
\verb|\hmark|: \hmark \par
\end{document}

Note that both solutions require the fontspec package and hence need XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX for compilation.

Thank you! This is certainly a sufficient solution for my use case :) — Seraf Fej, Sep 12 '23 at 12:32

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 12 '23 at 17:10

4

There is Brush Script in TeX Live.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{pifont}
\usepackage[T1]{pbsi}
\newcommand{\cmark}{\ding{51}}
\newcommand{\xmark}{\ding{55}}
\makeatletter
\NewDocumentCommand{\brushfrac}{mm}{%
  \mbox{%
    \bsifamily
    \check@mathfonts
    \sbox\z@{/}%
    \raisebox{\dimeval{\ht\z@-\height}}{\fontsize{\sf@size}{0}\selectfont#1}%
    \kern-0.2em/\kern-0.2em
    \raisebox{-\dp\z@}{\fontsize{\sf@size}{0}\selectfont#2}%
  }%
}
\makeatother
\NewDocumentCommand{\halfmark}{}{\brushfrac{1}{2}}
\begin{document}
\verb|\cmark|: \cmark
\verb|\xmark|: \xmark
\verb|\halfmark|: \halfmark
\end{document}

answered Sep 12 '23 at 17:10

egreg

1,121,712

To clarify, is the advantage of this approach that it doesn't require the fontspec package and hence doesn't need XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX for compilation? – Seraf Fej Sep 12 '23 at 18:43
@SerafFej That’s it. – egreg Sep 12 '23 at 19:16
Very helpful, thanks! – Seraf Fej Sep 13 '23 at 09:09

Half fraction symbol in the style of pifont's xmark/cmark

2 Answers2