Importing just a single symbol of a font
There are many packages that provide symbols. You often get the new commands for additional symbols by simply loading a package, using the \usepackage command. However, name conflicts can exist if other packages already use the same command name. It can result in an error or silently overwriting the command.
In this recipe, we will see how to choose one or more specific symbols from a package and access them, without loading the whole package.
We will choose a binary relation symbol from the mathabx package. This will be a symbol for less or equal. Later, we will import its negation.
Getting ready
In this recipe, we need to take a look at the source code of the symbol package to imitate part of what it does, so prepare yourself:
- Locate the mathabx.sty file and open it. At the command prompt, the kpsewhich mathabx.sty command gives you the location, but you can also use your file manager to search for it.
- In mathabx.sty...