a concocted symbol

[Haines Brown]

On Sat, Oct 30, 2021 at 06:07:55PM +0100, Philip Taylor (Hellenic Institute) wrote:
> On 30/10/2021 18:01, Haines Brown wrote:
> 
> > I need to construct a symbol, but worry about its falling apart or
> > becoming distorted when published.
> > 
> > The symbol is a circle enclosing a centered "N" and is attached to an arrow
> >   pointing right:
> > 
> > {\footnotesize{N}}$\kern -0.785em \bigcirc\kern  -0.4em\longrightarrow$
> > 
> > Can this  be done in a way that is simpler or is more stable?
> 
> As you have not specified the font in which this sequence is to occur, your
> two \kerns, expressed in ems, are unlikely to reliably work as intended. 
> Apart from a well-intentioned desire for portability, is there any reason
> why your definition cannot also include font family, size, variant, etc ?

Thanks, you are a bit help. I was presuming monospace. If I'm not 
wrong, the size of a kern depends on the em unit, which in turn 
depends on the font currently in use. So to gain portability I 
suppose I should specify a monospace font. For example:

{\footnotesize{N}}$\kern -0.767em \bigcirc\kern -0.4em\rightarrow$

I hope this makes the symbol portable, but I worry abou the \footnotesize. 
If \ regular, \small, \footnote size are based on a percentrage, I suppose
there is no problem. But am unsure.


-- 
Haines Brown