# How do I make the minus symbol less heavy (or plus more so)

I've made little superscript plus and minus signs for something by defining

\newcommand{\minus}[1]{{#1}^{\scalebox{0.8}{-}}}
\newcommand{\plus}[1]{{#1}^{\scalebox{0.6}{\!+}}}


the problem is that compared to the plus, the minus looks really heavy. See for yourselves:

I think I'd rather have a heavier plus. Any thoughts? (other than that I should be less anal)

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Your plus and minus should be in math mode here, which in particular means that the minus is not a minus: you've got a hyphen. Try \newcommand{\minus}[1]{{#1}^{\scalebox{0.8}{$-$}}} –  Joseph Wright Jul 7 '12 at 15:27
Oh, weird. That's some strange behavior. –  Lucas Jul 7 '12 at 15:31
Alos ypu really don't want to use \scalebox If you had just use \pi^- and \pi++ they would naturally be smaller size from teh scriptstyle font. By using a box command you go out of math mode so back to text size and then have to shrink by hand. –  David Carlisle Jul 7 '12 at 16:03

You should use math mode not text mode with shrinking via the graphics driver.

\newcommand{\minus}[1]{{#1}^{-}}
\newcommand{\plus}[1]{{#1}^{+}}


This will make a minus sign not a hyphen, and be naturally smaller because of the superscript.

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Would \ensuremath be useful in the definitions for \minus and \plus? –  JohnReed Jul 7 '12 at 18:06
well perhaps except really you should know if you are in math or not. definitions like \alpha or the primitive ^ superscripting operation only work in math mode, and TeX really expects the author to maintain that distinction. Blurring it with \ensuremath doesn't always make things clearer. –  David Carlisle Jul 7 '12 at 18:11
@JohnReed See tex.stackexchange.com/q/34830/575 for that question. –  Ryan Reich Jul 7 '12 at 18:12
Thanks to both of you for the comments and link. Always learning... –  JohnReed Jul 7 '12 at 19:36
You didn't say that you had tried that, It has the distinct advantage of taking the - and + from the same, mathematical font such that the - will be the same size and aligned with the bar of the + in almost all fonts. Using a hyphen character from a text font is just wrong, and a + from a text font may look OK, but isn't ideal either. –  David Carlisle Jul 8 '12 at 9:38