Where to find a list of all available symbols for ConTeXt?

Question

As mentioned in Which symbols need to be escaped in ConTeXt?, one can type commands, such as \textdollar to display symbols in a document. In some situations, using such commands seems advantageous, for instance, in allowing one to distinguishing content from code and for allowing one to make consistent, document-wide changes to symbols which should appear as text, but not to those symbols being used in ConTeXt and Lua code. Where can I find a comprehensive list of text commands which display symbols in Unicode using the currently selected font?

How to look up a symbol or identify a math symbol or character? provides instructions for finding symbols, but the solutions, such as Detexify do not seem relevant to ConTeXt.
The ConTeXt wiki has an article about symbols, however, this does not contain many of the items mentioned in Which symbols need to be escaped in ConTeXt?, which suggests to me that more special commands might be available.
The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List contains a list of symbols, some of which function in ConTeXt, but the document does not single out which symbol commands have been implemented in ConTeXt.

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 17 '12 at 04:11

5

The definitive guide is char-def.lua file in the distribution. It contains a table of all(?) unicode symbols and the ConTeXt macro for them (grep for contextname). It also contains the math macro name and the math class for symbols, where relevant.

Just find the unicode slot for the symbol you are looking for and search for it in char-def.lua. If you find a symbol name is missing (the table is not complete yet), write to the mailing list and it will be added in the list.

answered Apr 17 '12 at 04:11

Aditya

62,301

What happens if the symbols is listed, but there is no line for contextname? Are there alternative ways to type the character, such as typing 0x005D? – Village Apr 17 '12 at 05:01
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In that case, there is no ConTeXt macro for them. For a few symbols, additional \letter.... mappings are defined in catc-sys.mkiv. For Lua, few additional lualetter... mappings are defined in luat-ini.mkiv. In the worst case, you can always define your own mappings: \xdef\letterlbrace{[}, etc. – Aditya Apr 17 '12 at 05:22
If you think that there should be a macro corresponding to a certain symbol because that macro exists in LaTeX/AMS/etc, write to the context mailing list. – Aditya Apr 17 '12 at 05:23
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Assuming that you use an unicode encoded open type font you should be able to insert a char with ^^^^005d – Ulrike Fischer Apr 17 '12 at 07:36
If I define my own mappings, e.g. with \xdef\letterlbrace{[} will the same spacing rules which are given to that symbol be applied? – Village Apr 20 '12 at 23:46
@Village: I believe so. – Aditya Apr 21 '12 at 00:07

Where to find a list of all available symbols for ConTeXt?

1 Answers1