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How can I insert this currency symbol in LaTeX? It is called Colon and is used in some South American countries.

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  • Welcome to the TeX.SE. Possible related here? tex.stackexchange.com/questions/226602/…
    – Sebastiano
    Jul 10, 2020 at 9:14
  • @Sebastiano I saw that in the symbols list, but there is was listed with only one line through it.
    – daleif
    Jul 10, 2020 at 9:26
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    This is one of typical questions: how to print a character xy. And OP is able to insert this character in the text editor (see the title of this thread, for example). The the answer is simple: use such character in your source text, ₡100 for example. And use Unicode TeX engine and appropriate Unicode font.
    – wipet
    Jul 10, 2020 at 9:31
  • I like your answer @wipet. Unfortunately, I'm using Overleaf, and can't change compiler or my document messes up (pdflatex select, btw).
    – thmasker
    Jul 10, 2020 at 10:02
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    @wipet I know, but the whole document has been already done with pdflatex, and it would be a headache to adapt all to the new compiler (I've tried, and appearance changes too much)
    – thmasker
    Jul 10, 2020 at 11:40

1 Answer 1

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Here's a construction with the help of \ooalign that superimposes glyphs.

\documentclass{article}

\DeclareRobustCommand{\Colon}{{%
  \ooalign{%
    \hidewidth\raisebox{0.2ex}{/}\kern0.1em\hidewidth\cr
    C\cr
    \hidewidth\kern0.1em\raisebox{0.2ex}{/}\hidewidth\cr
  }%
}}

\begin{document}

You owe me \Colon 100

\end{document}

First a /, almost centered, but pushed a bit to the left; then a full width C, then another /, centered, but pushed a bit to the right. The two slashes are slightly raised.

Why not simply raising two slashes slightly separated from each other? There are two reasons:

  1. the slash has quite wide sidebearings;
  2. with \ooalign, the height and depth are determined by the first item and the last respectively.

Reason 2 would require a phantom with a raised slash, so there's no efficiency gain in raising two boxes.

enter image description here

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    With XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX and fontspec, the main font may have the character ₡ (U+20A1 COLON SIGN).
    – egreg
    Jul 10, 2020 at 9:38
  • this seems like a good solution. How could I force to insert one blank space between currency and 100?
    – thmasker
    Jul 10, 2020 at 10:06
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    @thmasker You may not need the space in every situation. Just do \Colon~100 when you need the space.
    – egreg
    Jul 10, 2020 at 10:08

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