# How to look up a symbol or identify a letter from a math alphabet or other character?

I know what my symbol or character looks like, but I don't know what the command is or which math alphabet it came from. How do I go about finding this out?

1. You can look things up in the Comprehensive LaTeX symbols list. It can usually be easily accessed with texdoc symbols or texdoc symbols-a4 (in MiKTeX the latter only).

2. Another good option is to try the web-based software Detexify, which allows you to draw the symbol and tries to recognize what you've drawn. Here is a screenshot:

3. If you are using the package unicode-math, then besides using any Unicode character list, the list of all supported symbols (texdoc unimath-symbols) is very useful as it also lists which symbols are available in the various fonts.

4. Using unicode-math, you can also search for characters by drawing (just like with detexify) using ShapeCatcher.

The above techniques provide an adequate way of finding symbols but are not necessarily foolproof since you sometimes need to know what you're looking for in order to find it. For example, in Typing Following notation in Latex it may not be apparent that "vector fields in differential geometry" are somehow related to "bowties". To that end, searching for a symbol rotated 90 degrees or flipped horizontally, say, might lead you in the right direction.

• Yup, Detexify has become the best way to do this Jul 26, 2010 at 19:38
• Detexify is particularly useful if you get it on a device with a touch screen (there are Android/iPhone apps for it) -- personally, I find it rather difficult to draw with my mouse, but finger works fine :) May 31, 2011 at 19:49
• It's worth pointing out that the Select from the complete list! link in the results list will display the symbols list ordered by score, so it's more useful than the intimidating term complete list might suggest.
– Jake
Oct 21, 2011 at 6:25
• @DavidPoole: For Wikipedia articles, try clicking the  button. It will show you the source, for math it is almost the same as LaTeX. It's a nice way to find out certain things, and also usefull for copying entire formulas ;) Sep 2, 2012 at 20:06
• Note to oneself: when it is in a more advanced level, think to speak of http://martin-thoma.de/write-math/. Jul 17, 2014 at 7:30

Theres lots of ways of doing this, but the two I've found to be most useful are these:

• Detexify Allows you to draw the symbol, and then guesses based on similar symbols. This is great for me because I don't always remember the name of the symbol, and even if I know the name, I may not have the correct name.

• AMS LaTeX Short Math Guide This short pdf gives an overview of AMS LaTeX functionality, and includes a pretty thorough list of most of the math symbols (un)commonly used in proofs and formulas.

• +1 for the magic combination of detexify and the AMS guide Jul 26, 2010 at 20:25
• Detexify is great, but I wouldn't say that the coverage of the Short Math Guide for LaTeX is representative. Mar 13, 2013 at 5:22
• Your link to the AMS LaTeX Short Math Guide appears to be broken. This appears to be the home page, but it, too lists the same FTP address. The entire site ftp.ams.org is there and you can connect with FTP, but you can't retrieve a site listing or change directory. Dec 29, 2017 at 22:17

The old school way is to look it up in the Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List (warning: 4 MB PDF file).

The new hotness is to use DeTeXify which uses handwriting recognition to look the symbol up for you.

DeTeXify even comes in an iPhone/Andriod app- you can get a free version or pay for one. The only difference is that with the paid app you are making a donation to the developer- the feature set is exactly the same.

The author is planning to work on a mobile version of the website that will supplant these apps.

• When you see a warning about a 4 MP download in 2018, you can only guess how much the world of the Internet has changed in the last decade. I remember when clicking on a download encompassing more than the dreaded 1'000'000 bytes was worth going afk and making coffee. Today, it took me 3 seconds to load that PDF (on my school's network, admittedly, but it wouldn't be much different at home.) Feb 2, 2018 at 11:02
• It looks like the iPhone app was made unavailable in the US AppStore some years ago, and it still is as of today. Sep 26, 2018 at 0:57

I often look up the relevant topic on Wikipedia, (e.g. Set theory) and look at the source there. Wikipedia uses LaTeX for math markup as well.

• This has the advantage that you also get advice on whether others are using the symbol you had in mind for this role. You may find many people use something else--which you might prefer once you see it. Dec 13, 2016 at 17:04

For uncommon symbols, instead of search documentation on-line or in a big PDF to find packages and commands to include in my code, I have found useful sometimes to compile the whole table of characters of a font (even in the working document) to quickly find, for example, the skull of the omding font that is \char194. Of course, you have first to know that you have a font file with that name (omding.tfm) but then is easy:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fonttable}
\begin{document}
\fonttable{omding}
\font\omding=omding
\omding  \char194
\end{document}


You can also search for a skull the in Comprehensive LaTeX symbols list, or paint a skull in Detexify, or remember the easy command "\skull" (and do not forget load the skull package and enter in math mode) o try to find a \dingbat or \ding{whatever}... but when I want a skull (really never) must be that of white bones (just try the other methods if you don't know what I mean).

There's also an iPhone app for Detexify, which I've used occasionally, for some reason ...

Links (on the US iTunes App Store): free version and supporter version (\$0.99, same functionality).

• This item seems no longer available in the US Store. Pity. Nov 2, 2015 at 16:17

## TL;DR

Direct link to the online service (currently down; look below to run this on your machine)

This service allows classification by drawing (even works on mobile devices!) and by text:

## Some information

The handwriting recognition toolkit (hwrt) is one possibility to classify you recordings. There are still many rough edges and the software gets updated on a daily basis (04.12.2014). The user interface is in a browser and looks like this:

The installation is explained in the documentation. If you have trouble or have an idea how to improve it, just leave a comment or write an email (info@martin-thoma.de).

This is a part of my bachelor's thesis. The thesis, some presentations and links to all software projects are on http://martin-thoma.com/write-math/

• Hehe, I would list the same results even as a human for this drawing
– user49121
Dec 4, 2014 at 18:26
• after using python -m pip install hwrt it starts installing. I'll feedback later.
– user49121
Dec 4, 2014 at 19:06
• @ moose I'm sorry but now error: package directory hwrt does not exist appears when I try to install by python setup.py install. Maybe it would be easier to provide a complete portable version for testing (without third party modules needed).
– user49121
Dec 17, 2014 at 18:33
• @TimS. Is this still a problem? Could we talk about it via email (info@martin-thoma.de) or via GitHub issue? Apr 18, 2015 at 20:02
• Thanks, this is wonderful work. Oct 26, 2021 at 18:23

I've just come across this list http://milde.users.sourceforge.net/LUCR/Math/unimathsymbols.pdf which lists characters using unicode numbers, their representation, and their (La)TeX command, together with other useful information.

Here's a random sample of what it looks like:

This reference has yet to fail me; it has all the symbols typeset along with the \foo command needed to generate them. There's also this PDF, which is considerably better put-together and covers other symbols besides the base math ones

In case you are using TeXstudio or Texmaker, you can browse the built-in catalog of symbols and find the symbol you need in the appropriate category of symbols (see the image below). It is very convenient, as by clicking on the symbol it gets automatically inserted into your document.

Moreover, if you're using TeXstudio on Windows, you can use Wizards -> Math Assistant... which enables you to draw symbols and it translates them into text.

• Thanks, are any plugins similar to Math-Assistant available for linux? Oct 10, 2020 at 6:11

The LaTeX wikibook Mathematics section has been very helpful for me.

Some utilities for lookup symbols in Unicode:

• ent2latex: A Perl script to translate Unicode symbols to LaTeX commands. (However, it doesn't utilize math fonts.)

• kcharset: A KDE application to lookup Unicode. (Well, you can input some symbols in Unicode directly, or lookup the corresponding LaTeX command by ent2latex.)

I use the Daum Equation editor then just copy and paste the code at the bottom (you can specify Tex,LaTeX, etc.) and even favourite the equations/symbols to avoid having to re-look them up every time you use them. Not sure if they have EVERY symbol, but it has been a good reference for me so far!

fontawesome provides access to a host of web-related icons (or symbols) provided by the included Font Awesome font.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontawesome}

\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}% Just for this example

\begin{document}

These are some symbols from the font \texttt{FontAwesome}:

\faBicycle\
\faCodeFork\
\faFirefox\
\faFortAwesome\
\faGears\
\faJsfiddle\
\faLinux

\end{document}


However, if you want access to the latest-and-greatest web-related icons from the font and are running XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, you can download the font directly. Here you can also search the list of available icons to identify a symbol.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}

\newfontfamily{\fa}{FontAwesome_0.otf}% http://fontawesome.io/

\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}% Just for this example

\begin{document}

These are some symbols from the font \texttt{FontAwesome}:

\fa
\symbol{"F2DC} % http://fontawesome.io/icon/snowflake-o/
\symbol{"F2C5} % http://fontawesome.io/icon/free-code-camp/
\symbol{"F2CC} % http://fontawesome.io/icon/shower/
\symbol{"F2DD} % http://fontawesome.io/icon/superpowers/
\symbol{"F2D6} % http://fontawesome.io/icon/grav/
\symbol{"F2C6} % http://fontawesome.io/icon/telegram/
\symbol{"F2CE} % http://fontawesome.io/icon/podcast/

\end{document}


To the long list of answers provided how to identify a character using online tools I can suggest to use also:

• Shapecatcher very similar to Detexify, where you can find in addition to Unicode characters also LaTeX characters (see the symbol of the \beta near the chick).
• Drawing Font Checker by Tekla apparently free software that allows you to detect fonts using an image.

Referring to the answer of the user @Werner, there is also a supplement as increased of the package fontawesome, called fontawesome5 of Marcel Krüger.

This is a small table as example,

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{fontawesome5}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\centering
\caption{Some fontawesome5 symbols}
\medskip
\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}
\hline
\faArtstation & \faAtom \\ \hline
\faBroom &  \faCarrot\\ \hline
\faCheese &  \faFrog\\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

• Awesome answer, btw! Feb 25, 2020 at 14:35

If you use Mac, there is an app named "Texpad 2" from which you can pick most symbols:

My book "Schnell and Ziel mit LaTeX2e" (only available in German) has a symbol index with a lookup method inspired by Chinese dictionaries: The mathematical symbols are ordered by the number and type of strokes needed to draw them. The index includes the symbols from plain TeX, AMS symbols, and LaTeX symbols.

As far as I know, this index has not been copied by other authors.