All LaTeX users will some­times need a sym­bol for which they don’t know the com­mand. If you use WinEdt, there is a neat drop-​​down menu of some com­mon sym­bols that can be help­ful, but it is nec­es­sar­ily lim­ited. What do you do when you want the male and female symbols?

For sev­eral years I’ve been using the com­pre­hen­sive sym­bol list when­ever I need a sym­bol in LaTeX that I can’t recall. But it is time con­sum­ing hunt­ing through the 141 page doc­u­ment look­ing for just the right symbol.

Now there’s a new tool that promises to be a great time-​​saver: Detex­ify. Just draw the sym­bol you want by hand and it comes up with some sug­gested com­mands and the pack­ages that con­tain them. I’ll be using it regularly!

Update: There are now iPhone and Android apps for Detex­ify. The free ver­sion is iden­ti­cal to the sup­porter ver­sion, but you sup­port the devel­op­ment of Detex­ify by buy­ing it.

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