You can find a number of font alternatives that get pretty close to your sample at the LaTeX Font Catalogue, Calligraphical and Handwritten Fonts. Here are some options (although some are of questionable typographically technical quality, i.e. not vectorized fonts that look pixel-y):
![Z in different fonts](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3qWaD.png)
Lukas Svatba has even more options. For information on how to implement a particular font, see the respective page in the Font Catalogue.
A tikz
solution is obtained by modifying the answer https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/41628/15925
![Sample output](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jUiS4.png)
\documentclass[border=0.5cm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes}
\tikzset{
dot hidden/.style={},
line hidden/.style={},
dot colour/.style={dot hidden/.append style={color=#1}},
dot colour/.default=black,
line colour/.style={line hidden/.append style={color=#1}},
line colour/.default=black
}
\usepackage{xparse}
\NewDocumentCommand{\drawdie}{O{}m}{%
\begin{tikzpicture}[x=1em,y=1em,radius=0.1,#1]
\draw[rounded corners=0.5,line hidden] (0,0) rectangle (1,1);
\ifodd#2
\fill[dot hidden] (0.5,0.5) circle;
\fi
\ifnum#2>1
\fill[dot hidden] (0.2,0.2) circle;
\fill[dot hidden] (0.8,0.8) circle;
\ifnum#2>3
\fill[dot hidden] (0.2,0.8) circle;
\fill[dot hidden] (0.8,0.2) circle;
\ifnum#2>5
\fill[dot hidden] (0.8,0.5) circle;
\fill[dot hidden] (0.2,0.5) circle;
\ifnum#2>7
\fill[dot hidden] (0.5,0.8) circle;
\fill[dot hidden] (0.5,0.2) circle;
\fi
\fi
\fi
\fi
\end{tikzpicture}%
}
\begin{document}
\drawdie{0}
\drawdie{1}
\drawdie[radius=0.5pt]{3}
\drawdie{7}
\drawdie[line colour=blue,thick]{8}
\drawdie[scale=0.5,dot colour=green,very thin,line hidden/.append style={fill=red}]{9}
\end{document}
The changes I have made are to add an extra case for numbers >7
(7
worked already) and removed the thick
default for the border, allowing it to be set to other values in smaller sizes. I have also removed the external dotsize variable and given an example of filling.
Best Answer
You've indicated in a comment that you use Times (New) Roman as your text font. Most Times Roman-like fonts do not provide a "swashy" ampersand character, but the
newtx
font package does. :-) The following MWE shows both the italic and "normal" form of the character that's produced by this font family:Addendum If the character shown above is not "swashy" enough for your taste you could try a font such as
Palatino
orCaslon
. (The screenshot you provided in your posting would seem to come from the fontAdobe Caslon Pro
.) Note that some of the swashy ampersands employ a fancy combination of an uppercaseE
and a lowercaset
, whereas others consist of an equally fancy combination of a lowercasee
and a lowercaset
.(To compile the preceding MWE use either XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX; pdfLaTeX won't work. Of course, you'll also have to have the various fonts installed on your system.)
And, if you have access to
Zapfino
you can choose from seven [7!] different variants of&
: