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Looking for a Dot Product dot that is the right size

It is just too easy to confuse \cdot with scaler multiplication, so I am looking for something different.


The Latex \cdot is too small. The \bullet symbol is too big. The Option 8 symbol is the same as the \bullet symbol.


Bolding a \cdot (\bold \cdot) does not work.


And the vertical location of the dots are a little bit low. That is why I went looking in the Emoji & Symbols character list. But Latex doesn't appear to like any of those characters.


Is there a dot symbol bigger than a \cdot and smaller than a \bullet?



And could someone tell me where to put questions about Latex.

Posted on Mar 7, 2022 9:16 AM

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3 replies

Mar 8, 2022 6:29 AM in response to JoannaEMC

First of all, the Pages/Numbers/Keynote equation editors, do not give you full access to LaTeX, or LaTeX packages, even if you have MacTeX 2021 installed. That means many of the packages that might offer fine-tuning of a dot product symbolism are simply not available. See the About LaTeX and MathML support in Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and iBooks Author - Apple Support.


The equation editor in Pages (and Numbers/Keynote) uses a LaTeX/MathML converter (blahtex) that has a restricted vocabulary of LaTeX symbols that you can use, and when it is done, there is an embedded MathML object in your Pages document. There is a link to the blahtex PDF guide in the above link. That is the "bible" for inserting LaTeX equations in the mentioned applications.


You will have to live with \cdot if you plan to use the Pages, equation editor.


\nabla\cdot \overset{\rightarrow}{\textsf{E}} = \frac{\rho}{\varepsilon_0}



Mar 8, 2022 10:00 AM in response to JoannaEMC

If you use that blahtex PDF guide that you have a link too within that About LaTeX link I provided earlier, it lists the LaTeX operators that it supports, such as \overset on page 4:



Apple has thus far assumed that users of the Pages equation editor are already familiar with LaTeX, or MathML, and that documentation resides on the Internet. However, the last word in support is what that blahtex translator will permit, and granted, that is frustrating… One has to know that \overset takes two arguments but that is not shown in the blahtex guide, and again, assumptions are running rampant that individuals just know LaTeX…

Mar 8, 2022 8:55 AM in response to VikingOSX

Considering that Apple was built on the beautiful calligraphy of Steve Jobs, it is unexpected that Apple Mathematical typesetting is not beautiful. It is disrespectful of his memory and the history of how Apple came to be..


Even the "About LaTex" document you identified does not define the command "\overset" that you used in your example. The command "\overset" can be found in one of the notes, but it is not in the list of available commands. This document does not define the commands and only provides a few notes to help people use what is available.


It would go a long way in improving the situation if the "About LaTex" document defined each command, documented the undocumented commands and provided some examples.

Looking for a Dot Product dot that is the right size

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