Symbols

< Visuals | Fonts >

Symbols are named graphical or typographic elements. They can be divided into symbol sets, which gives some namespace independence, as well. You can load the symbol definitions from a symb-bla file with:

\usesymbols[bla]

Given a symbol Snowman defined in a symbolset Weather Symbols, you could typeset the symbol with:

\setupsymbolset [Weather Symbols]
\symbol [Snowman]

Or, alternatively, you don't need to load the entire symbolset:

\symbol[Weather Symbols][Snowman]

You can override the existing symbols used at different levels in itemized lists by redefining the existing symbol numbers, with code like the following:

\usesymbols[mvs]
\definesymbol[1][{\symbol[martinvogel 2][PointingHand]}]
\definesymbol[2][{\symbol[martinvogel 2][CheckedBox]}]
\startitemize[packed]
\item item \item item
 \startitemize[packed]
 \item item \item item
 \stopitemize
\item item
\stopitemize

Which (free) font contains some symbol?

• comprehensive list of symbols in TeX fonts
• Zapf Dingbats, Unicode and Apple symbols and how to use them with ConTeXt (Adam's page)
• Unicode slots of symbols