amssymbpackagespdftexsymbols
I have been looking for a few days a package that it contains a command/symbol to use with pdfLaTeX, without using TikZ, of the tennis ball. I have seen The Comprehensive LATEX Symbol List where there are symbols but I couldn't find anything.
Sure to have courteous and benevolent feedback I extend my greetings and thanks.
Theoretically, you could use \xrightarrow[\sim]{} (from amsmath) or \xlongrightarrow[\sim]{} (from extarrows). Both look horrible though. The \sim on top of the arrow (like \xlongrightarrow{\sim}) looks somewhat better.
Unicode defines ⥴ (U+2974 RIGHTWARDS ARROW ABOVE TILDE OPERATOR), which you can use in case you run Xe/LuaLaTeX with unicode-math (either directly or with the \rightarrowsimilar alias). There are also ⥱ (\equalrightarrow), ⥲ (\similarrightarrow), ⥳ (\leftarrowsimilar), ⥵ (\rightarrowapprox) and other strange things.
While the fonts and the respective packages are being built, as pragmatic as it can be, one can get away with the following inline TikZ drawings
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\newcommand{\dflat}{\tikz[baseline=-1.2mm] \node {\reflectbox{$\flat$}};}
\newcommand{\sflat}{\tikz[baseline=-1.2mm] \node {\reflectbox{$\flat$}$\flat$};}
\newcommand{\dsharp}{\hskip3pt \tikz[baseline=-1.2mm] {%
\clip (-2pt,-6pt) rectangle (-.2pt,6pt); \node at (0,0) {$\sharp$};}\hskip3pt
}
\newcommand{\ssharp}{\tikz[baseline=-1.2mm] {%
\node[inner sep=0mm] at (0,0) {$\sharp$};\node at (1.7pt,0.55pt) {$\sharp$};}
}
\begin{document}
\parbox{5cm}{
This is some random text to use the symbols \dflat, \sflat,\dsharp and \ssharp inline.
It can be improved by assigning some input parameters and adjusting the kerning as
C~{\hskip-7pt\dflat}, A~{\hskip-6pt\dsharp} or D~{\hskip-6pt\ssharp}
}
\end{document}
I will not attempt to make stupid comments since I know almost nothing about typography and kerning but this can be automated at will. Also I am not sure if these commands I have defined are robust. Please consider this as a proof of concept.
Addition by Jake:
By using \tikz [baseline] \node [anchor=base, inner sep=0pt], the nodes will automatically be positioned on the text line like a character would, so the vertical position doesn't have to be adjusted manually.
When defining TikZ commands to be used in text lines, it is usually a good idea to specify lengths in terms of ex and em, since these depend on the surrounding font size. That way, the symbols will scale with the text.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\newcommand{\dflat}{\tikz [baseline] \node [anchor=base, inner sep=0pt] {\reflectbox{$\flat$}};}
\newcommand{\sflat}{\tikz [baseline] \node [anchor=base, inner sep=0pt] {\reflectbox{$\flat$}$\flat$};}
\newcommand{\dsharp}{\tikz [baseline] {%
\clip (-0.2em,-1ex) rectangle (-0.01em,2ex);
\node[anchor=base, inner sep=0pt] {$\sharp$};}
}
\newcommand{\ssharp}{\tikz[baseline] {%
\node[anchor=base,inner sep=0pt,name=leftsharp] at (0,0) {$\sharp$};
\node at (leftsharp.east) [xshift=-0.25em, yshift=0.1ex, inner sep=0pt,anchor=west] {$\sharp$};}
}
\begin{document}
\parbox{5cm}{
This is some random text to use the symbols \dflat, \sflat, \dsharp and \ssharp inline.
It can be improved by assigning some input parameters and adjusting the kerning as
C\dflat, A\dsharp or D\ssharp
}
\parbox{5cm}{\Large
The symbols scale with the text:
C\dflat, A\dsharp or D\ssharp
}
\end{document}
Best Answer
Well, package
fontawesomeseems to be not longer maintained and therefore you can not add with LaTeX and this package an symbol for an ball into your document.But you can use package
fontawesome5.The font shows the following ball symbols on the web page:
As you can see the symbol for an tennis ball is grey that means you have to pay for the fontawesome5 pro font to be able to use it. Only the black shown symbol are available in the free font version.
So you can try for example:
with the resulting pdf: