9

I would like to use the wasysym package to get access to characters such as lightning and clock. However, the following MWE for me gives different symbols.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{wasysym}
\begin{document}
$\lightning\clock$
\end{document}

This results in the following when I run pdflatex on it.

enter image description here

That is, lightning is instead rendered to a backtick and clock is instead rendered to a 0.

I have TeXLive 2012 on Ubuntu 12.04 and the same shows up when using Evince or Okular to view. I do not know if this is a problem with my LaTeX code or with my TeX installation or some encoding problem particular to my machine.

Xu Wang
  • 1,239

1 Answers1

9

Don't use mathmode

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{wasysym}
\begin{document}
\lightning\clock
\end{document}

enter image description here

I don't have much idea on mathmode. But here is a workaround using \text from amsmath:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath,wasysym}
\begin{document}
\lightning\clock $\text{\lightning}$
\end{document}

Or use \mbox{} --- $\mbox{\lightning}$ as noted by Gonzalo.

  • Thanks. Where are those symbols defined in mathmode? that is, why lighning goes to backtick and not something else and why doesnt it give me an error? Also, how can I use lightning in math mode? – Xu Wang Nov 02 '12 at 01:42
  • @XuWang You can load amsmath (before wasysym)and enclose it in a \text{} macro, e.g. $x^{\text{\lightning}}$ – Scott H. Nov 02 '12 at 01:48
  • No need to load amsmath and use \text; a simple \mbox is enough: $\mbox{\lightning}$. – Gonzalo Medina Nov 02 '12 at 01:55
  • @GonzaloMedina -- although the original example doesn't use these symbols as superscripts, one of the comments to the answer does, and for that use, unless \lightning is wanted at full size (yech!), amsmath and \text are more appropriate than \mbox. – barbara beeton Nov 02 '12 at 13:46
  • @barbarabeeton sure; I suggested \mbox since the OP didn't mention the use as super/subscript; (the comment that mentions the use as superscript is not from the OP). – Gonzalo Medina Nov 02 '12 at 13:55