# [texhax] symbol for triple vertical 'x'

Philip G. Ratcliffe philip.ratcliffe at uninsubria.it
Fri Dec 17 12:54:27 CET 2004

> \newcommand{\recur}{\hbox to 1ex{\hbox to0pt{\raisebox{0.7ex}{x}}%
> \hbox to0pt{\raisebox{-0.5ex}{x}}%
> \hbox to0pt{\raisebox{0.1ex}{x}}}}

There are two or three problems with the above:

1. It leads to three aligned vertically BUT overlapping x's, which I think
is not what the poster intended;
2. The length "ex" is not the width but height of the lower-case letter x
(which, depending on the font, may or may not coincide with its width - in
this case it doesn't).  In fact, it is redundant here.
3. The use of \hbox to0pt with no shrinkable glue (\hss) inside leads to
annoying overfull \hbox warnings, use \makebox[0pt][l]{...} instead.

I believe the following might be more in line with what the poster requested
(although the x's still appear a little large):

\newcommand{\recur}{%
\raisebox{-0.8ex}{%
\small
\makebox[0pt][l]{\raisebox{2.4ex}{x}}%
\makebox[0pt][l]{\raisebox{1.2ex}{x}}%
x%
}%
}

However, if, as I suspect, they are not really supposed to be x's but
crosses, then try substituting the letter x with $\times$ and fiddling with
the size and spacing, thus:

\newcommand{\recur}{%
\raisebox{-0.5ex}{%
\tiny
\makebox[0pt][l]{\raisebox{3.6ex}{$\times$}}%
\makebox[0pt][l]{\raisebox{1.8ex}{$\times$}}%
$\times$%
}%
}

A last, perhaps neater, solution is:

\newcommand{\recur}{%
\raisebox{0.4ex}{%
\tiny
\arraycolsep0pt
\def\arraystretch{0}%
$\begin{array}{c}\times\\\times\\\times\end{array}$%
}%
}

To be safer, one should really use \smaller or \mathsmaller from the
'relsize' package.

Cordialmente,  Philip G. Ratcliffe
-----------------------------------------
Professor of Nuclear & Subnuclear Physics
Dipartimento di Fisica e Matematica
Università degli Studi dell'Insubria
via Valleggio 11
22100 Como (CO)
Italy

Tel. +39 (031) 238.6231
Fax  +39 (031) 238.6119
Cell +39 (340) 2346580
Web  http://www.unico.it/~pgr
-----------------------------------------