# How to make a small $\varhexagon$ in latex?

I would like to have a command that shrinks down the size of $\varhexagon$ from the wasysym package in latex to a very small size.

In principle, $\tiny \varhexagon$ does what I want, but apparently the command "tiny" is not allowed in math mode.

Is there a way to circumvent this?-Note that \scriptscriptstyle does not seem to give the same size as \tiny.

In short, I want a command that does the same as $A_{\tiny \varhexagon}$ but does not use the illegal command \tiny.

• @CarLaTeX it is not a duplicate, since none of the suggestions gives precisely the same size as \tiny. – J.Doe Mar 20 at 6:42
• @J.Doe scale to \tiny or to \large is the same concept. – CarLaTeX Mar 20 at 7:05

Indeed, \tiny is a text mode command and thus is not allowed in math mode.

What you may be looking for is

\newcommand\tinyvarhexagon{\vcenter{\hbox{\scalebox{0.5}{$\varhexagon$}}}}

where \scalebox is a macro provided by the graphic package and \vcenter and \hbox are TeX "primitive". \tiny corresponds to a linear reduction in font size of 50%; hence the 0.5 scaling factor. With this definition, the tiny hexagon is centered vertically on the math axis. If you would rather have the resized symbol placed on the baseline, just omit the \vcenter{\hbox{...}} "wrapper".

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{wasysym} % for "\varhexagon" macro
\usepackage{graphicx}% for "\scalebox" macro
\newcommand\tinyvarhexagon{\vcenter{\hbox{\scalebox{0.5}{$\varhexagon$}}}}
% ("\vcenter" and "\hbox" are TeX primitives)

\begin{document}
$a\varhexagon a$ $a\tinyvarhexagon a$ $a\scalebox{0.5}{$\varhexagon$} a$

$A_{\varhexagon}$ $A_{\tinyvarhexagon}$ $A_{\scalebox{0.5}{$\varhexagon$}}$
\end{document}
• well, unfortunately it does not give the same size as tiny – J.Doe Mar 20 at 6:39
• @J.Doe - Please see the updated answer. – Mico Mar 20 at 7:04

You can load the font with a different scaling factor:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{wasysym} % just for comparison

\DeclareFontFamily{U}{wasysmall}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{wasysmall}{m}{n}{
<-5.5> s*[0.75] wasy5
<5.5-6.5> s*[0.75] wasy6
<6.5-7.5> s*[0.75] wasy7
<7.5-8.5> s*[0.75] wasy8
<8.5-9.5> s*[0.75] wasy9
<9.5-> s*[0.75] wasy10
}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{wasysmall}{b}{n}{
<-5.5> s*[0.75] wasyb5
<5.5-6.5> s*[0.75] wasyb6
<6.5-7.5> s*[0.75] wasyb7
<7.5-8.5> s*[0.75] wasyb8
<8.5-9.5> s*[0.75] wasyb9
<9.5-> s*[0.75] wasyb10
}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{wasysmall}{bx}{n}{ <-> sub * wasysmall/b/n}{}

\DeclareSymbolFont{wasysmall}{U}{wasysmall}{m}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{wasysmall}{bold}{U}{wasysmall}{b}{n}

\DeclareMathSymbol{\smallhexagon}{\mathord}{wasysmall}{57}

\begin{document}

{\tiny\varhexagon} $\scriptstyle\smallhexagon$ $A_{\smallhexagon}$

\end{document}

Note that loading wasysym is not required, I did just for the comparison.

You can avoid wasting a symbol font:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\DeclareFontFamily{U}{wasysmall}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{wasysmall}{m}{n}{
<-5.5> s*[0.75] wasy5
<5.5-6.5> s*[0.75] wasy6
<6.5-7.5> s*[0.75] wasy7
<7.5-8.5> s*[0.75] wasy8
<8.5-9.5> s*[0.75] wasy9
<9.5-> s*[0.75] wasy10
}{}

\newcommand{\smallhexagon}{\text{\usefont{U}{wasysmall}{m}{n}\symbol{57}}}

\begin{document}

$A_{\smallhexagon}$

\end{document}

If you just need the symbol to change size in subscripts, you can do in a different way:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{wasysym}

\DeclareMathSymbol{\mhexagon}{\mathord}{wasy}{57}

\begin{document}

$A_{\varhexagon}$ (wrong)

$A_{\mhexagon}$

\end{document}

The amsmath package also provides the \text command which allows text mode commands inside math mode without warnings (see also the answer by @egreg above).

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{wasysym}

\begin{document}
A{\tiny\varhexagon}

$A_{\text{\tiny\varhexagon}}$
\end{document}

Result:

As you can see, this approach works for both smaller text sizes as well as smaller math sizes.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{wasysym,scalerel,lmodern}
\newcommand\xvarhexagon{\scaleto{\varhexagon}{1.4\LMex}}
\begin{document}
$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon \scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon \scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\small$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon \scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon \scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\footnotesize$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon \scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon \scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\scriptsize$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon \scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon \scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\tiny$\varhexagon x\xvarhexagon \scriptstyle x\xvarhexagon \scriptscriptstyle x\xvarhexagon$

\normalsize$x_{\xvarhexagon} =3\xvarhexagon y$
\end{document}