Plus/minus sign with parentheses

[Rasmus Villemoes]

Hi

I'm looking for a symbol like \pm, but where the minus-sign is
enclosed in parentheses; something like

+
(-)

(of course, this ASCII graphics is largely out of scale)

I looked through symbols-a4, but couldn't find it (perhaps I'm
blind). I need it for a construction like "If $X$ and $Y$ are both
(anti-)holomorhic, we have $b(\pm X, \pm Y) = ...$", and the
parenthesis should indicate that the minus sign corresponds to the
anti-case. Of course, I could also explain this in words, and if the
symbol exists but the result turns out to be ugly, that is what I will
do.

[tdbiii]

Post by Rasmus Villemoes
Hi
I'm looking for a symbol like \pm, but where the minus-sign is
enclosed in parentheses; something like
+
(-)
(of course, this ASCII graphics is largely out of scale)
I looked through symbols-a4, but couldn't find it (perhaps I'm
blind). I need it for a construction like "If $X$ and $Y$ are both
(anti-)holomorhic, we have $b(\pm X, \pm Y) = ...$", and the
parenthesis should indicate that the minus sign corresponds to the
anti-case. Of course, I could also explain this in words, and if the
symbol exists but the result turns out to be ugly, that is what I will
do.
--
Rasmus Villemoes
<http://home.imf.au.dk/burner/>

does this work?

\frac{+}{(-)}

Tom de Bruin

[Lars Madsen]

Post by tdbiii

Post by Rasmus Villemoes
Hi
I'm looking for a symbol like \pm, but where the minus-sign is
enclosed in parentheses; something like
+
(-)
(of course, this ASCII graphics is largely out of scale)
I looked through symbols-a4, but couldn't find it (perhaps I'm
blind). I need it for a construction like "If $X$ and $Y$ are both
(anti-)holomorhic, we have $b(\pm X, \pm Y) = ...$", and the
parenthesis should indicate that the minus sign corresponds to the
anti-case. Of course, I could also explain this in words, and if the
symbol exists but the result turns out to be ugly, that is what I will
do.
--
Rasmus Villemoes
<http://home.imf.au.dk/burner/>

does this work?
\frac{+}{(-)}
Tom de Bruin

\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+}{(-)}

might be better

but it still does not look good.

I still think you might have to draw your own in metafont or messing with \pm
(by adding ()'s to it)

[Enrico Gregorio]

Post by Rasmus Villemoes
Hi
I'm looking for a symbol like \pm, but where the minus-sign is
enclosed in parentheses; something like
+
(-)
(of course, this ASCII graphics is largely out of scale)
I looked through symbols-a4, but couldn't find it (perhaps I'm
blind). I need it for a construction like "If $X$ and $Y$ are both
(anti-)holomorhic, we have $b(\pm X, \pm Y) = ...$", and the
parenthesis should indicate that the minus sign corresponds to the
anti-case. Of course, I could also explain this in words, and if the
symbol exists but the result turns out to be ugly, that is what I will
do.

\makeatletter
\newcommand\***@ftsym[1]{%
\smash{\raise-.3ex\hbox{$\scriptscriptstyle#1$}}}
\newcommand\varpm{\mathbin{\***@ftsym({\pm}\***@ftsym)}}
\makeatother

$a\varpm b$

Ciao
Enrico

[Rasmus Villemoes]

Post by Enrico Gregorio
\makeatletter
\smash{\raise-.3ex\hbox{$\scriptscriptstyle#1$}}}
\makeatother
$a\varpm b$

Thanks. This was sort of precisely what I was looking for, but after
seeing the result I decided that it was too ugly. I think I'll put
this notation into the categrory which works well on a blackboard, but
not in print (which, I guess, is the reason the symbol does not
exist).

[Herbert Voss]

Post by Rasmus Villemoes
Hi
I'm looking for a symbol like \pm, but where the minus-sign is
enclosed in parentheses; something like
+
(-)
(of course, this ASCII graphics is largely out of scale)
I looked through symbols-a4, but couldn't find it (perhaps I'm
blind). I need it for a construction like "If $X$ and $Y$ are both
(anti-)holomorhic, we have $b(\pm X, \pm Y) = ...$", and the
parenthesis should indicate that the minus sign corresponds to the
anti-case. Of course, I could also explain this in words, and if the
symbol exists but the result turns out to be ugly, that is what I will
do.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\newcommand*\PM{\ensuremath{\begin{matrix}
+\\[-2pt]\mbox{\small(--)}\end{matrix}}}

\begin{document}

\PM or $\PM$

\end{document}


Herbert

[Juho Niemelä]

Post by Rasmus Villemoes
Hi
I'm looking for a symbol like \pm, but where the minus-sign is
enclosed in parentheses; something like
+
(-)
(of course, this ASCII graphics is largely out of scale)
I looked through symbols-a4, but couldn't find it (perhaps I'm
blind). I need it for a construction like "If $X$ and $Y$ are both
(anti-)holomorhic, we have $b(\pm X, \pm Y) = ...$", and the
parenthesis should indicate that the minus sign corresponds to the
anti-case. Of course, I could also explain this in words, and if the
symbol exists but the result turns out to be ugly, that is what I will
do.

How about something like this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\newcommand\varpm
{%
\mathbin{%
\renewcommand\arraystretch{0}%
\setlength\arraycolsep{0pt}%
\begin{array}{r@{\kern-.1em}c@{\kern-.1em}l}
& + & \\[-.2ex]
\begin{array}{c}
\scalebox{.8}[.5]{(}
\end{array}
& - &
\begin{array}{c}
\scalebox{.8}[.5]{)}
\end{array}
\end{array}%
}%
}

\begin{document}
$b(\varpm X, \varpm Y) = ...$
\end{document}


Juho