April 25, 2011

How to produce an asterisk in LaTeX

Strangely I cannot find a document online showing how to produce a single asterisk (*) in LaTeX, except the centered version (by \ast in math environments). Multiple asterisks in a row are fine (**, ***), which are displayed as they are, but if you simply type * or \*, nothing will be displayed in the compiled file. After trial and error (which fortunately didn't take long), I figured out a solution by typing \** (yes, two asterisks) in the normal environment, which produces a single asterisk (*) in normal size and position.

11 comments:

  1. http://ctan.uib.no/info/symbols/comprehensive/symbols-a4.pdf

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  2. no need of writing \** just write * wherever you want.

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    Replies
    1. But this doesn't work at the beginning of a line!

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  3. I figure out a solution by simply typing *

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  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  6. Thank you so much! I was really puzzled why neither * nor \* works for me with TexShop and even the latest The Comprehensive Latex Symbol List doesn't mention anything. \** works. Maybe it's just TexShop.

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  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. I have some solution for starting a line with *. You start the line with one space which is ~ and then you put the *

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  9. I was trying to write x * y. The given solutions produce an asterisk that is raised vertically. What worked well was \textasteriskcentered in the symbol list provided by Peter (above).

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