"just right" integral sign for tikz integrator block

Question

Goldilocks question:

I want an integral sign and dt that looks good in a block diagram; the inline size looks too small and the displaystyle size looks too big. Is there any way I can scale it somehow to be between the two?

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shadows, positioning}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[node distance=5mm, auto, font=\sffamily,
       blockcolors/.style={
        % The rest
        thick,draw=black,
        top color=white,
        bottom color=black!10,
        font=\sffamily\small
    },
    blockheight/.style = {
        minimum height=10mm
    },
    block/.style={
        % The shape:
        rectangle, minimum size=6mm, minimum width=12mm,
        blockheight,
        node distance=5mm,
        blockcolors,
        drop shadow
    }
    ]
\node (int1) [block, label=below:too small]{$\int dt$};
\node (int2) [block, right=of int1, label=below:too big]{$\displaystyle\int dt$};
\node (int3) [block, right=of int2, label=below:just right]{???};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 27 '16 at 00:12

A \scalebox should suffice.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shadows, positioning}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[node distance=5mm, auto, font=\sffamily,
       blockcolors/.style={
        % The rest
        thick,draw=black,
        top color=white,
        bottom color=black!10,
        font=\sffamily\small
    },
    blockheight/.style = {
        minimum height=10mm
    },
    block/.style={
        % The shape:
        rectangle, minimum size=6mm, minimum width=12mm,
        blockheight,
        node distance=5mm,
        blockcolors,
        drop shadow
    }
    ]
\node (int1) [block, label=below:too small]{$\int dt$};
\node (int2) [block, right=of int1, label=below:too big]{$\displaystyle\int dt$};
\node (int3) [block, right=of int2, label=below:just right]{$\scalebox{1.4}{$\int$}dt$};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 27 '16 at 07:43

4

With \usepackage{nccmath} you can type

$\medint\int dt$

in the third box and the result will be

Goldilocks is wrong here: the right one is in the middle.

answered Sep 27 '16 at 07:43

egreg

1,121,712

1

Have the serioeus bugs in nccmath as mentioned in Minipage content overlaps with text before that if nccmath is used been addressed? I still avoid this package due to the issues I have encoutered such as those mentioned in Is there a replacement for nccmath?. – Peter Grill Sep 27 '16 at 09:13
@PeterGrill No idea. I never use nccmath, to be honest. And you can see from my answer that I don't really like the output. – egreg Sep 27 '16 at 09:18
Ahh... I missed the subtly in your answer. – Peter Grill Sep 27 '16 at 09:25
but I do like it, that's exactly what I was looking for. – Jason S Sep 27 '16 at 16:26
@JasonS I was afraid you would say it. ;-) – egreg Sep 27 '16 at 17:03
Maybe the mathematicians like the \displaystyle case and control engineers like the \medint case. – Jason S Sep 27 '16 at 17:06

"just right" integral sign for tikz integrator block

2 Answers2