Useful Unicode symbols

Like many people, I haven't found a good way to write math in emails and I often end up using LaTeX commands.¹ But not everyone is fluent in LaTeX. So what I sometimes do is that I use Unicode characters to write easy-to-read plain text formulas. Even when the person knows LaTeX, a formula such as

lim_{n → ∞} ∫ φ(x) 𝟙{X_n ∈ [x, x+ε] ∩ A_n} λ(dx)

is arguably more pleasant to read than

\lim_{n \to \infty} \int \phi(x) \Indicator{X_n \in [x, x+\epsilon] \cap A_n} \lambda(dx).

Below is a list of some of the symbols that I find the most useful. It is by no means exhaustive, and is biased by the kind of mathematics I do.

Greek letters and common symbols

α β γ δ ε ζ η θ κ λ μ ν ξ π ρ σ τ φ χ ψ ω

Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Φ Ψ Ω

≤ ≥ ≠ ≃ ≈ ∝ ≍ ≺ ≻ ≼ ≽

→ ↦ ⇒ ⇔ ↑ ↓ ↔

∏ ∑ ⋂ ⋃ ∫

∈ ∉ ∅ ∃ ∀

∪ ∩ ⊔ ⊂ ⊄

∞ ∂ ℓ † ⋄ × ‧ ± ⊥ ⫫

ℙ ℚ ℂ 𝔼 ℕ ℝ ℤ 𝟙

⌊⌋ ⌈⌉ ⟦⟧ ⟨⟩ ‖

Math fonts

𝓐 𝓑 𝓒 𝓓 𝓔 𝓕 𝓖 𝓗 𝓘 𝓙 𝓚 𝓛 𝓜 𝓝 𝓞 𝓟 𝓠 𝓡 𝓢 𝓣 𝓤 𝓥 𝓦 𝓧 𝓨 𝓩

𝒜 ℬ 𝒞 𝒟 ℰ ℱ 𝒢 ℋ ℐ 𝒥 𝒦 ℒ ℳ 𝒩 𝒪 𝒫 𝒬 ℛ 𝒮 𝒯 𝒰 𝒱 𝒲 𝒳 𝒴 𝒵

𝔄 𝔅 ℭ 𝔇 𝔈 𝔉 𝔊 ℌ ℑ 𝔍 𝔎 𝔏 𝔐 𝔑 𝔒 𝔓 𝔔 ℜ 𝔖 𝔗 𝔘 𝔙 𝔚 𝔛 𝔜 ℨ

𝐀 𝐁 𝐂 𝐃 𝐄 𝐅 𝐆 𝐇 𝐈 𝐉 𝐊 𝐋 𝐌 𝐍 𝐎 𝐏 𝐐 𝐑 𝐒 𝐓 𝐔 𝐕 𝐖 𝐗 𝐘 𝐙

𝐚 𝐛 𝐜 𝐝 𝐞 𝐟 𝐠 𝐡 𝐢 𝐣 𝐤 𝐥 𝐦 𝐧 𝐨 𝐩 𝐪 𝐫 𝐬 𝐭 𝐮 𝐯 𝐰 𝐱 𝐲 𝐳

𝔸 𝔹 ℂ 𝔻 𝔼 𝔽 𝔾 ℍ 𝕀 𝕁 𝕂 𝕃 𝕄 ℕ 𝕆 ℙ ℚ ℝ 𝕊 𝕋 𝕌 𝕍 𝕎 𝕏 𝕐 ℤ

Useful links

• More greek letters (ς, ϑ, ϕ, ϖ, ϰ, ϱ, ϵ...)
• More math symbols (ℏ, ℘, ℵ, ↪, ⇉, ⇀, ...)
• Superscripts and subscripts (quite incomplete!)

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^{1. In the past, I've used add-ons such as Markdown Here to render LaTeX formulas as images and embbed them in emails. But that has the disadvantage of requiring the receipient to view the email as HTML, and that one ends up sending emails with tons of attached images. Some people might also argue that systematically solliciting a third party server to render the formulas is suboptimal. Finally, these add-ons tend to have a fairly short life-span, and can unpredictably stop working with a release of Thunderbird. ↑}