How to dot in latex?

Whether you use them for multiplication, or for denoted large numbers or any other use you imagine, dots symbols are part of LaTeX, and today you will learn how to write it in your documents

This symbol can be seen alone or in groups, depending on the use, maybe inside a matrix or between countable elements. Depending on the context you will use it for one thing or another. For example

Now in LaTeX, all the dots symbols do not need external packages, they are built-in into LaTeX. Math mode is indeed required for all the LaTeX commands.

If we want to recreate the example above the code will look like,

If you pay attention you will see that the word \[letter]dots, this is the command for all the dots symbols you can create by default, where letter can be any of the following letters: l, c, v, and d.

Another important aspect is the difference between singular and plural, dots is for three dots following each other in a line, whereas dot is just for one simple dot.

Let’s start with the vertical dots, the command is \vdots. You can think of it as vertical dots, literally the abbreviation! You can use it if you are working with matrices or vectors in matrix form. For example

Moving on to the next orientation you have the horizontal dots, here we have two commands for the dots, the \cdots command, and the \ldots command. The latter is lowered dots and the former is centered dots.

The \ldots is used for a set of numbers for example, and \cdots usually with functions with n terms. For example

The last option available for the orientation of dots is the diagonal dots, the command is \ddots diagonal dots.

These type of dots are most used in matrices, for example

In case you are wondering how to write a simple dot symbol the command would be \cdot center dot. The output would look like the dot product, and that’s the reason for using \cdot in the dot product.

You are now ready to start writing your dots symbols in LaTeX; maybe there are more options with packages for these symbols, but that is up to you to look for the answers.

I hope this tutorial was helpful.

As always, keep writing in LaTeX.

All the images were created in LaTeX by the author.

A dot derivative is denoted by a dot or more than one dot on a letter in mathematics.

It is very easy to write in LaTeX, you need to use \dot{v} command for a single dot and \ddot{v} command for double dot on the letter. And these are the default commands of LaTeX.

Output :

You will also need the amsmath package if you want to use more dots on the letter, you can use the \dddot{v} and \ddddot{v} commands included in this package.

If you look at the latex commands, you will understand that as many dots as “d” has been used.

Output :

To denote the vector dot derivative you need to use \vec{v} as an argument in the \dot{arg} command like \dot{\vec{v}}.

\vec{arg} command is used to denote vectors in latex and it’s a default command of latex.

You can also use the \vv{arg} command in the esvect package instead of the \vec{arg} command.

This will make the arrow symbol at the top of the letter look more professional and you can use any one of the optional arguments a, b, c … h with the esvect package to print the arrow as you like. Like \usepackage[b]{esvect}, that’s why I recommend it.

Output :

This article provides an introduction to typesetting, and customizing, various types of list in LaTeX:

Typesetting lists is a large topic because LaTeX lists are extremely configurable, enabling creation of an enormous variety of list types and structures. We’ll survey and demonstrate some methods you can use to configure and customize your lists.

Unordered (bulleted) lists are produced by the itemize environment, where each list entry starts by using the \item command, which also generates the bullet symbol.

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This example produces the following output:

Numbered (ordered) lists have the same syntax but use the enumerate environment: each entry must be preceded by the control sequence \item, which will automatically generate numbers to label the item. These numbers start at 1 with every use of the enumerate environment—note that this, default, LaTeX numbering behaviour can be changed/controlled via the enumitem package.

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This example produces the following output:

The following example demonstrates the description environment. The (optional) label for each entry is enclosed in square brackets after the \item command:

We also use the blindtext package to generate some dummy English text in the third entry. To obtain English we need to use the babel package with the language option [english]:

Here is the example:

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This example produces the following output:

As shown in the description environment example, the \item command takes an optional parameter, in square brackets. You can use this feature within itemize and enumerate environments to change the default label of individual entries in your list:

The label text will be used to produce the label for this entry.

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This example produces the following output:

In LaTeX you can insert a list inside another list. The above list types may be included within one another, either mixed or of one type, to a depth of 4 levels.

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This example produces the following output:

The label style of nested list entries changes according to its depth in the list. For nested itemize lists the bullet type changes; for enumerate lists the number format changes with increasing depth of entry. Both are limited to a depth of 4 levels.

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This example produces the following output:

The bullet style changes depending on the depth of the nested lists:

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This example produces the following output:

LaTeX’s lists are highly configurable, providing plenty of scope for the creation of many different types of customized list. You can either make direct modifications to LaTeX’s standard list types or, preferably, use the highly versatile enumitem package to do it for you.

CTAN hosts a number of list-related packages which may be worth investigating if you have particular customization requirements. In addition, tex.stackexchange provides a wealth of list-related questions with answers that provide useful insights and great examples!

We’ll start with some examples which modify list labels then move on to customization of list layouts.

Firstly, we show how to change list labelling without using the enumitem package.

Custom lists can be produced by using the enumitem package or direct modification of the standard lists. Here, we’ll give a summary of some standard LaTeX commands, counter variables and list parameters that you may need to be aware of.

The following table shows the LaTeX commands used for label-generation at each level of the itemize and enumerate list environments:

The enumerate list environment also uses four counter variables which keep track of the current label value for each level:

You can configure LaTeX’s standard labelling by using \renewcommand to redefine the label-generating commands and, for the enumerate environment, you can also use the appropriate counter variable.

Here are some examples which do this without using the enumitem package.

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This example produces the following output:

In the previous example, the command \arabic was used to typeset the current value of various label counter variables. Note that “Arabic numerals”, and use of the command \arabic, refers to the digits 0 to 9: see this Arabic numerals article on Wikipedia for further background.

In general, a counter variable can be printed in various formats by using one of the following 5 commands:

For example:

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This example produces the following output:

This example typesets emoji using an OpenType colour font so it will only work in LuaLaTeX. See the Overleaf article An overview of technologies supporting the use of colour emoji fonts in LaTeX for more information on typesetting emoji.

Although this a just a fun example, using LuaLaTeX, it demonstrates customizing all four label-generation commands, and using the label-counter variables, to create some unusual labelling... Click the “Open in Overleaf” link to see the full code.

To see the full code, open this LuaLaTeX example in Overleaf.

This example produces the following output

In addition to customizing labels, it is possible to modify list spacing and layout, but first we need to know the various LaTeX parameters which determine typesetting and layout of lists.

You can use the layouts package to generate a diagram which displays the LaTeX list parameters:

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This example produces the following output:

The meaning of these parameters is described in the list section of the LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual so we won’t reproduce it here.

LaTeX provides the generic list environment which provides a framework for creating your own list type(s). Using the information contained in the diagram above, the following example is a slightly modified version of one contained in the list section of the LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual

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This example produces the following output:

The enumitem package is the recommended method for modifying standard LaTeX lists or creating your own custom list formats. enumitem provides a wealth of features so we can’t cover all of them but we can provide a few basic examples to help get you get started. Anyone wishing to explore this versatile package in more depth is strongly encouraged to browse tex.stackexchange for questions, answers (and examples) relating to the enumitem package, and to read the package documentation.

The enumitem provides an optional configuration parameter called shortlabels which you use via

The shortlabels option mimics the behaviour of the enumerate package, providing a concise method for defining the numbering scheme of enumerate environments. See the enumerate package documentation for further information.

With reference to the LaTeX parameters diagram we can use enumitem to easily customize a standard LaTeX list, such as itemize:

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This example produces the following output:

To create a new list type with enumitem you use the \newlist command which requires 3 arguments:

After you have created the new list you can configure it with the \setlist command.

In this example we’ll create a new list called myitems which is based on enumerate. We’ll set max-depth to 3:

A minimum requirement is using the \setlist command to define labels for this custom list. One way to do that, for enumerate-based lists, is to use the counter variables created by the enumitem package—those counter variables use the name of your list: myitems in our example.

Here is how we use the corresponding counter variables within our label configuration:

If we had more than 3 levels, the corresponding counter variables would be called myitemsiv (level 4), myitemsv (level 5) and so forth, continuing the use of lower-case Roman numerals.

In addition to the labels, we’ll also set some values for leftmargin and rightmargin (see the LaTeX parameters diagram).

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This example produces the following output:

The enumitem package lets you create lists which can be nested to an arbitrary depth, removing LaTeX’s limit of 4. Anyone preparing contracts with complex (deeply nested) clause structures might benefit from this, although the nested code does look a little intimidating...

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This example produces the following output:

The following examples only work with LuaLaTeX and are designed to give a suggestion of some possibilities—of course, substitute MetaPost with your preferred drawing application/tool!

These examples use the luamplib package and also demonstrate expandable commands, such as \the and \directlua, can be used within the MetaPost code.

This example produces bullet points that reduce in size as the list depth increases. Click on the “Open in Overleaf” link to run the example and view the full code.

To see the full code, open this LuaLaTeX example in Overleaf.

This example produces the following output:

This example was inspired by an example on tex.stackexchange which Overleaf has modified to create custom bullets using MetaPost code. Click on the “Open in Overleaf” link to run the example and view the full code.

To see the full code, open this LuaLaTeX example in Overleaf.

This example produces the following output:

In this tutorial, we will discuss in-depth the use of all kinds of dot symbols and latex commands.

In latex, the simple dot symbol is represented by the \cdot command. And you may have seen its use in vector dot products.

Output :

Also, you can take the help of physics package. Where the \vdot command is used to define the vector dot product.

Output :

When you use n number elements to represent a mathematical expression. In that case, the three-dot symbol is used without marking each element in the expression.

Also, there are many commands. In this tutorial, we will only discuss the above five commands.

You look at the program below. Three dots have been used along with the \ldots command.

Output :

In both cases, there is a difference between the output. In my opinion, it is better to use \ldots command instead of using three dots.

For example, the \cdots command is used when the sum of n numbers is displayed.

Output :

I hope you understand the difference between \ldots and \cdots commands.

Vertical dot consists of three-dot symbols, which are located vertically. And this symbol is represented by \vdots Command.

Output :

You must install the amsmath package when denoting the matrix. And use the \usepackage command when installing a package.

This symbol is located along the diagonal from N-W to S-E. And this symbol is mostly used to represent the elements located along the diagonal of the matrix.

Output :

If you look at the program above, you will understand that \ddots has been used for the diagonal dots symbol.

The inverse diagonal dots symbol will be located along the S-W to N-E direction. There is more than one command to represent this symbol but this tutorial will only discuss \iddots commands.

Output :

To use the \iddots command in Latex you need to install the mathdots package. Because there is no default command in latex to represent the inverse diagonal dots symbol.

When a variable is derivative in respect of time, the time derivative is represented by a dot symbol on the head of that variable.

Output :

The \cdot is a multiplication symbol. The following are all equivalent

It is useful in thermo-fluid dynamics formulas where there are a lot of multi character values such as Reynolds number, Prandtl number, etc.

Compound SI units (see siunitx package) is also multiplication

For vector-tensors it is element wise multiplication

• – \ ldots for horizontal dots on the line.
• – \ cdots for horizontal dots above the line.
• – \ vdots for vertical dots.
• – \ ddots for diagonal dots.