# X mark to match checkmark

I am looking to have an X mark that compliments the \checkmark symbol in the amsmath package. I've had a look at some in symbols-a4.pdf but can't seem to find the matching one! What symbol works well?

• I normally use \text{\sffamily X}. – Yiannis Lazarides Jan 28 '12 at 20:40
• Thanks a lot! That looks fine. It isn't quite as curly as the checkmark though. – Tom Deakin Jan 28 '12 at 21:09
• If you remove the \sffamily it will print in serif font and it will be more curly! – Yiannis Lazarides Jan 28 '12 at 21:23

I would think your best bet might come from pifont's dingbats:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amssymb}% http://ctan.org/pkg/amssymb
\usepackage{pifont}% http://ctan.org/pkg/pifont
\newcommand{\cmark}{\ding{51}}%
\newcommand{\xmark}{\ding{55}}%
\begin{document}
\verb|\checkmark|: \checkmark \par
\verb|\cmark|: \cmark \par
\verb|\xmark|: \xmark
\end{document}


\cmark is defined as \ding{51}, while \xmark is defined as \ding{55}. Here is a list of the dingbat symbols, taken from the pifont quick reference guide:

• Great, thanks.The \ding{55} looks good. Making the \xmark command is useful too! – Tom Deakin Jan 28 '12 at 22:09
• +1 but for those of you (just) looking to use \checkmark, i'd suggest using the amsfonts package instead of the amssymb package. the amssymb package expands upon the more commonly used symbols defined in amsfonts, and includes some rare ones. you might experience a noticeable increase in compile time if you use amssymb and don't need it. – aeroNotAuto Apr 5 '12 at 17:52
• Just tried this and \ding{51} and \ding{55} get evaluated to the numbers 3 and 7, respectively... anyone else have this issue? – A.Wan Jan 29 '15 at 6:58
• Answer to A. Wan's question: you need to escape math mode for these characters to show correctly – ash May 16 '15 at 13:46
• A way to use it in math mode (or textmode) would be \newcommand{\xmark}{\text{\ding{55}}} for example. – Tim Jun 25 '15 at 16:24

If using XeLaTex is an option, then you could use one of Unicode's X mark (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_mark for a complete list). All characters may not be available in your favorite font, but, as noted in this answer, DejaVu Sans has a pretty good support.

On my installation, when I compile the following with XeLaTeX,

% !TeX TXS-program:compile = txs:///xelatex/
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xltxtra,xunicode}
\setmainfont{DejaVu Sans}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{c c c}
Symbol & Unicode Codepoint (Hex) & Name\\
☐ & U+2610 & BALLOT BOX (checkbox)\\
☒ & U+2612 & BALLOT BOX WITH X (square with cross)\\
✗ & U+2717 & BALLOT X (cross)\\
✘ & U+2718 & HEAVY BALLOT X (bold cross)\\
× & U+00D7 & MULTIPLICATION SIGN (z notation Cartesian product)\\
╳ & U+2573 & BOX DRAWINGS LIGHT DIAGONAL CROSS\\
☓ & U+2613 & SALTIRE (St Andrew's Cross)\\
✕ & U+2715 & MULTIPLICATION X\\
✖ & U+2716 & HEAVY MULTIPLICATION X\\
❌ & U+274C & CROSS MARK\\
❎ & U+274E & NEGATIVE SQUARED CROSS MARK\\
⨉ & U+2A09 & N-ARY TIMES OPERATOR\\
⨯ & U+2A2F & VECTOR OR CROSS PRODUCT\\
🗙 & U+1F5D9 & CANCELLATION X\\
🗴 & U+1F5F4 & BALLOT SCRIPT X\\
🞩 & U+1F7A9 & LIGHT SALTIRE
\end{tabular}
\end{document}


I obtain:

Note that it is possible to set the font to DejaVu Sans only for those symbols: again, follow the explanations at https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/291955/34551.