# Detexify couldn't help me find >— and —<, can you?

These symbols are like arrow, except the arrow heads are inverted. Some ASCII art: >-- or --<

Could you help?

## 3 Answers

I couldn't find any existing symbols. But, one option would be to use tikz to draw them:

## Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newcommand{\toReversed}{\mathrel{\tikz [x=1.4ex,y=1.4ex,line width=.14ex, baseline] {\draw (0,0.5) -- (1,0.5); \draw [<-] (0.95,0.5) -- (1,0.5);}}}%
\newcommand{\fromReversed}{\mathrel{\tikz [x=1.4ex,y=1.4ex,line width=.14ex, baseline] {\draw (0,0.5) -- (1,0.5); \draw [<-] (0.05,0.5) -- (0,0.5);}}}%

\begin{document}
$A \toReversed B \fromReversed C$
\end{document}

• I really need to learn tikz properly... – user89 Apr 30 '14 at 5:39

They are \righttail and \lefttail with unicode-math, U291A and U+2919. No math font for pdflatex provides them, as far as I know, except for the STIX fonts.

If you have them, you can import the symbols; not really compatible with the standard arrows, but not too distant either.

\documentclass{article}

%% from stix.sty (with slight changes)
\DeclareFontEncoding{LS1}{}{}
\DeclareFontSubstitution{LS1}{stix}{m}{n}
\DeclareSymbolFont{arrows2}{LS1}{stixsf}{m}{it}
\SetSymbolFont{arrows2}{bold}{LS1}{stixsf}{b}{it}

\DeclareMathSymbol{\lefttail}    {\mathrel}{arrows2}{"B2}
\DeclareMathSymbol{\righttail}   {\mathrel}{arrows2}{"B3}
\DeclareMathSymbol{\leftdbltail} {\mathrel}{arrows2}{"B4}
\DeclareMathSymbol{\rightdbltail}{\mathrel}{arrows2}{"B5}

\begin{document}
$A\lefttail B \righttail C \rightarrow D$

$A\leftdbltail B \rightdbltail C$
\end{document}


With unicode-math

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{unicode-math}

\setmathfont{Latin Modern Math}
\setmathfont[range={\lefttail,\righttail,\leftdbltail,\rightdbltail}]{XITS Math}

\begin{document}
$A\lefttail B \righttail C \rightarrow D$

$A\leftdbltail B \rightdbltail C$
\end{document}


Also Asana Math has the symbols. Unfortunately they are missing from Latin Modern Math and the other TeX Gyre math fonts, that is, Termes and Pagella.

• What are the advantages of this solution over the tikz solution (the currently accepted answer)? – user89 May 1 '14 at 3:00
• @user89 None; I just wanted to point to a different possibility. – egreg May 1 '14 at 8:11
• @user89: TikZ renderings can only be copy+pasted as graphics, not as text. This answer makes a document with text arrows that will correctly copy+paste. – Ben Voigt Sep 13 '18 at 16:17

This approach builds it from existing characters, in a manner that tries to mimic the style of the default arrowheads.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\def\righttail{\mathrel{%
\makebox[.2pt][l]{$\righttailhelper$}\righttailhelper\mkern-4mu-}}
\def\righttailhelper{\scalebox{.5}[1]{$\succ$}}
\def\lefttail{\mathrel{%
-\mkern-4mu\makebox[.2pt][l]{$\lefttailhelper$}\lefttailhelper}}
\def\lefttailhelper{\scalebox{.5}[1]{$\prec$}}
\begin{document}
$A \righttail C \rightarrow D$

$A \leftarrow C \lefttail B$
\end{document}