# Latex command for plus-over-cross

I want to use the symbol 'plus-over-cross' to refer to point in a Matlab generated figure. In LaTex terms this will be an overlay of + over \times. Any ideas?

Note that I do not want the asterisk symbol.

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Generally detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html helps you to answer such questions. But it doesnt seem to be the case that such a character exists in any package. tex.stackexchange.com/questions/21644/… might be a relevant answer for you. –  sheß Jan 31 '14 at 11:04
Yes, I tried detexify. And also documentations of unicode-math, bbding, pifont, etc. But didn't find it. –  Prometheus Jan 31 '14 at 11:08

This is similar to another recent answer (Latex command for unfilled \bigstar), and uses a \stackinset to achieve the goal. The \scalerel is used to make it work across math style sizes.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{stackengine}
\usepackage{scalerel}
\newcommand\pluscross{\scalerel*{\stackinset{c}{}{c}{}{$+$}{$\times$}}{+}}
\begin{document}
$+\times\pluscross$
$\scriptstyle+\times\pluscross$
$\scriptscriptstyle+\times\pluscross$
\end{document}


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Excellent. Thanks again! –  Prometheus Jan 31 '14 at 11:16
You also can use the \mathrlap from the mathtools package: $\mathrlap{\times}+$. –  Bernard Jan 31 '14 at 11:28
@Bernard It seems that approach was similar to shess' answer, except without the math sizes. Thanks for the tip. I would add that the \rlap approach works only because both character components are the same width and height. \stackinset would allow for a correction if that were not the case. –  Steven B. Segletes Jan 31 '14 at 11:30
Oops! Sorry, I didn't see this answer that was given while I checked whether it worked fine. –  Bernard Jan 31 '14 at 11:32

Another way, based on the rlap as mentioned in the post linked in my first commment:

\documentclass[12pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\newcommand{\foo}{\rlap{+}{\texttimes}}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
this symbol consists of two: \foo
\end{document}


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\mathpalette and \ooalign are easier:

\documentclass{article}
\newcommand{\plustimes}{\mathpalette\plustimesinner\relax}
\newcommand{\plustimesinner}[2]{%
\mathbin{\vphantom{+}\ooalign{$#1+$\cr\hidewidth$#1\times$\hidewidth\cr}}%
}

\begin{document}
$+\times\plustimes$
$\scriptstyle+\times\plustimes$
$\scriptscriptstyle+\times\plustimes$
\end{document}


If one doesn't want to risk cases where \mathsurround is non zero, the definition of \plustimesinner should be changed into

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\plustimesinner}[2]{%
\mathbin{\vphantom{+}\ooalign{%
$\m@th#1+$\cr
\hidewidth$\m@th#1\times$\hidewidth\cr}}%
}
\makeatother

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