[texhax] superposing symbols

[doug waud]

Hi

"Dewey H. Hodges" wrote:
> 
> I'm attempting to find out how to use LaTeX to draw a northeast arrow
> through a symbol and have a zero at the tip of the arrow (showing
> that the quantity crossed out is going to zero). I've been
> unsuccessful so far. Can you help?

I believe this is one of those "you can't get there from here"
situations. :-)

You can relatively easily (\hskip, \raise, \scriptscriptstyle, and
twiddling) put that ) at the end of the arrow. However, if you then
\hskip back os the arrow lies on top of something, everything behind the
box which holds the arrow/0 is obliterated. TeX fonts are not
transparent.

One relatively direct solution if you have only a few symbols to
overstrike, would be to find them in a Metafont source, add the arrow
and thereby generate a font with the arrows over the selected
characters. This would probably require a bit of learning curve
investment with metafont. :-(

A second workaround which come to mind (again if there is not too many
characters to be overstruck) would be to put them out as eps figures and
use pstricks to add the overstrike. Again this would require some
investment in self-training. :-(  However, pstricks is a nice tool/toy
to have in your armamentarium so it might be worth the time. :-)

(I confess that I am not expert enough to be certain there is no
alternative, but write since I noticed nobody else replied and I did not
want you left hanging completely.)

doug