# Dice symbols for digits up to 9

I'm looking for symbols for dice faces. So far, I've found these two possibilities: The command \Cube{n} in the ifsym package, and the command \dice{n} in the epsdice package.

However, both commands only allow the standard symbols for n = 1..6.

What I'm looking for are dice symbols that include the digits 7, 8, 9 as they can be found in some extended versions of domino games.

The number 7 should look like this:

* *
***
* *


The number 8 like this:

***
* *
***


and the number 9 like this:

***
***
***


For completeness, it would also be nice if there is a blank face symbol for the digit n=0.

Is there any package allowing me to do this? If not, can anyone show me how to produce such symbols?

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Welcome to TeX.sx!, we usually dont put a thank you in the question. Hence, I have removed it. :) –  zeroth Mar 15 '13 at 13:38
@zeroth: ok...May I say thank you now? :) –  azimut Mar 15 '13 at 13:40
In the ifsym package the dice are created in metafont (so the symbols are characters in a font), and in epsdice the dice are created in PostScript and the symbols are images clipped from a multipage file. So if you want to extend those packages you have to use either metafont or PostScript. As for "If not," you are bound to get several TikZ solutions soon. –  Matthew Leingang Mar 15 '13 at 13:44
@MatthewLeingang: I am using LaTeX (pdflatex) a lot, but I have to admit that I don't have much of an idea what is going on under the hood (concerning characters, fonts, etc). What do you think is the preferable way? Adjusting ifsym, adjusting epsdice or using TikZ? –  azimut Mar 15 '13 at 13:51
@azimut: definitely, TikZ is the way to go. Using Metafont and ifsym restricts you to bitmap fonts (unless you want to learn Metatype1, which you don't;)), epsdice is a Postscript solution so it might be nontrivial to get it to work with pdflatex, and TikZ is both supported by pdflatex and easy to learn/use. –  mbork Mar 15 '13 at 14:06

A tikz solution is obtained by modifying the answer http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/41628/15925

\documentclass[border=0.5cm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes}
\tikzset{
dot hidden/.style={},
line hidden/.style={},
dot colour/.style={dot hidden/.append style={color=#1}},
dot colour/.default=black,
line colour/.style={line hidden/.append style={color=#1}},
line colour/.default=black
}

\usepackage{xparse}
\NewDocumentCommand{\drawdie}{O{}m}{

\draw[rounded corners=0.5,line hidden] (0,0) rectangle (1,1);
\ifodd#2
\fill[dot hidden] (0.5,0.5) circle;
\fi
\ifnum#2>1
\fill[dot hidden] (0.2,0.2) circle;
\fill[dot hidden] (0.8,0.8) circle;
\ifnum#2>3
\fill[dot hidden] (0.2,0.8) circle;
\fill[dot hidden] (0.8,0.2) circle;
\ifnum#2>5
\fill[dot hidden] (0.8,0.5) circle;
\fill[dot hidden] (0.2,0.5) circle;
\ifnum#2>7
\fill[dot hidden] (0.5,0.8) circle;
\fill[dot hidden] (0.5,0.2) circle;
\fi
\fi
\fi
\fi
\end{tikzpicture}
}
\begin{document}

\drawdie{0}
\drawdie{1}

The changes I have made are to add an extra case for numbers >7 (7 worked already) and removed the thick default for the border, allowing it to be set to other values in smaller sizes. I have also removed the external dotsize variable and given an example of filling.