Making a shorter minus

Question

I am doing some display typography with an equation in it using the mathpazo package. At one point I have this fraction:

$\sqrt{-\frac{1}{9}}$

To me, the minus looks too long. I would like to make it shorter, but use of \textrm{-} gives me something that is too thick. Is there a way to get something with the thickness of the minus above, but of a similar length to a hyphen?

Edited to add: this is really for a special case of enormous type on a T-shirt design, and the standard minus sign looks strange. I would not do this for standard use of math in an article.

Answer 1

Would something as simple as a \scalebox do?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fixltx2e,graphicx,mathpazo}
\begin{document}
\( \sqrt{\scalebox{0.75}[1.0]{\( - \)}\frac{1}{9}} \)

% cf.
\( \sqrt{-\frac{1}{9}} \) 
\end{document}

Here, I am using the optional argument to \scalebox to set the vertical scaling to 1, so that only the horizontal size changes.

Answer 2

I use \text{-} for a shorter minus sign.

Answer 3

There is actually a short dash with rounded ends in amsfonts. It is called \dabar@ and it is only used in the definition of \dasharrow=\dashrightarrow and \dashleftarrow (hence the name). It looks exactly like a shorter version of the Computer Modern minus sign, and is also compatible with mathpazo (which has a nearly identical minus sign).

I'm redeclaring this character below as a binary operator so that its spacing matches that of - in all situations.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsfonts} %% <- also included by amssymb
\DeclareMathSymbol{\shortminus}{\mathbin}{AMSa}{"39}

\usepackage{mathpazo} %% <- because the OP uses mathpazo, optional

\begin{document}

\[
    -5, \shortminus5
\]

\end{document}

This is what it looks like with the mathpazo line commented out:

Answer 4

for a unary minus that isn't going to be surrounded by a lot of other math -- you did say this would be on a t-shirt -- you might try an en-dash. it's thinner and wider than a hyphen, but at about the same height off the baseline as a hyphen, so you might want to fiddle a bit with the vertical position.

Answer 5

Here is a very hackish solution that draws a rule instead:

\def\minus{%
  \setbox0=\hbox{-}%
  \vcenter{%
    \hrule width\wd0 height \the\fontdimen8\textfont3%
  }%
}
$$
-A \quad \minus A
$$
\bye

Update: a LaTeX version:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mathpazo}

\begin{document}
\newcommand\minus{%
  \setbox0=\hbox{-}%
  \vcenter{%
    \hrule width\wd0 height \the\fontdimen8\textfont3%
  }%
}
\[
-A \quad \minus A \quad \textrm{-}A
\]
\end{document}

Answer 6

I stumbled on this solution:

\documentclass{article}
\def\-{\raisebox{.75pt}{-}}
\begin{document}
$ -8 \quad \-8 \quad {\scriptstyle -8} $
\end{document}