Using \colon or : in formulas?

Question

I noticed that in many documents you encounter $f: X \to Y$ instead of $f \colon X \to Y$. Another example are quantified expressions: $\forall x: P (x)$ versus $\forall x \colon P(x)$. I find the \colon visually more pleasing, however I sometimes think I seem to be the only one, given the overwhelming amount of documents that seem to use :. Is there a rule of thumb to decide where you should use either \colon or :?

Answer 1

Both : and \colon typeset a colon, but \colon is a punctuation symbol, while : is considered as a relation symbol as regards to spacing.

The main use of : is in set descriptions

\{\, x : x \notin x \,\}

(somebody uses \mid for this, where a simple | would be wrong; thin spaces after \{ and before \} are recommended by Knuth, be consistent in using them or not).

Conversely, \colon should be used for mappings

f\colon A \to B

but unfortunately many writers don't make this distinction and use :, getting a wrong spacing.

The rule to follow is just the same: use \colon when it's a "punctuation colon", use : when it represents a relation between what's at its left and at its right. In something like "for all x:" I would consider the colon as punctuation, so \forall x\colon