10

I want to have a double headed vector. I tried \overleftright, but the appearance is all but pretty. I would like to get the same kind of symbol, but with \vec appearance. Is it possible?

Alfredo Hernández
  • 752

1 Answers1

14

Built using stacks:

\documentclass{article}
\def\vecsign{\mathchar"017E}
\def\dvecsign{\smash{\stackon[-1.95pt]{\vecsign}{\rotatebox{180}{$\vecsign$}}}}
\def\dvec#1{\def\useanchorwidth{T}\stackon[-4.2pt]{#1}{\,\dvecsign}}
\usepackage{stackengine}
\stackMath
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
$ \vec c \vec A  \dvec c \dvec A$
\end{document}

enter image description here

There remains a slight possibility for overlap, when, for example, having $\dvec d \dvec b$. That issue can be remedied by using a little kern to make a narrower \dvec, as follows. To recover the original, reset \shrinkage to 0mu.

\documentclass{article}
\def\shrinkage{2.1mu}
\def\vecsign{\mathchar"017E}
\def\dvecsign{\smash{\stackon[-1.95pt]{\mkern-\shrinkage\vecsign}{\rotatebox{180}{$\mkern-\shrinkage\vecsign$}}}}
\def\dvec#1{\def\useanchorwidth{T}\stackon[-4.2pt]{#1}{\,\dvecsign}}
\usepackage{stackengine}
\stackMath
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
$ \vec c \vec A  \dvec c \dvec A$
$\dvec d \dvec b $
\end{document}

enter image description here

Steven B. Segletes
  • 237,551
  • 2
    Because of my font election, I had to change -1.95 for -2.60, but your answer is abusuletly brilliant and elegant. – Alfredo Hernández Feb 25 '14 at 18:29
  • @AlfredoHernández Note that I added a \smash to \dvecsign else it had too much dead space above it. – Steven B. Segletes Feb 25 '14 at 18:30
  • Just wondering, is this possible to accomplish via \newcommand instead of \def? – Alfredo Hernández Feb 26 '14 at 21:01
  • 1
    Yes. For \shrinkage, \vecsign and \dvecsign, merely substituting \newcommand for \def will suffice. For the case of \dvec, substitute \newcommand\dvec[1] for \def\dvec#1. The differences between \def and \newcommand, outside of the syntax, is that \newcommand arguments can have \pars in them, whereas \def cannot, unless you define it \long. Also, \newcommand will only proceed, if the command name does not already exist, whereas \def will overwrite an existing macro. And, of course, \newcommand can take optional arguments conveniently. – Steven B. Segletes Feb 26 '14 at 21:06
  • Yeah, that's why I usually use \newcommand (just simple things, though). That worked nicely. – Alfredo Hernández Feb 26 '14 at 21:19
  • Like @AlfredoHernández I had to change the \stackon[-1.95] to \stackon[-2.35pt] to have the arrows overlap, apart from that nice solution! (would be nice to have an explanation on which numbers do what) – BadAtLaTeX Nov 11 '17 at 15:50