How to make the correct hash-symbol in C Sharp (C#)

Question

I want to make C# look nice in my book, but with the following:

C\# it looks like this:

When it should look more like this:

For the second one, I used verbatim, but I don't want that and I've also used a macro like the following everywhere so it should be easy to replace:

\def\Csharp{C\#}

Any suggestions on how I make this look correct?

Edit

I am writing a programming book, in the C# Language Specification, it looks like this:

Answer 1

Since Computer Modern Roman does not have a fitting hash symbol, we need to look somewhere else. I experimented with several popular fonts and found that the hash symbol from Liberation Serif does not stand out, has approximately the same brush width and isn't too wide.

Unfortunately, as Liberation Serif is a TrueType font, it can't be readily used with pdfTeX. Below is the code to use it with XeTeX/LuaTeX.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}

\newfontface\lserif{Liberation Serif}

\newcommand{\Csh}{C{\lserif\#}}

\begin{document}

Some text \Csh{} some text.

\end{document}

Workaround for pdfTeX

Process this file with XeTeX/LuaTeX and save the result as hash-symbol.pdf:

\documentclass[border=0pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\begin{document}% I get extra space without this comment
\fontspec{Liberation Serif}\#
\end{document}

Then use this code to include the symbol with pdfTeX:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\newcommand{\Csh}{C\includegraphics{hash-symbol}}

\begin{document}

Some text \Csh{} some text.

\end{document}

The positioning of the symbol might be slightly off, use \kern and \raisebox to fine-tune. Also note that this will only work for one font size; to remedy this, \scalebox might be useful (manual).

Answer 2

Like egreg said earlier in his comment, use \newcommand{\textsharp}{$\sharp$}

The hash symbol was used out of necessity since ASCII did not contain a sharp symbol, but it was intended as a sharp note symbol as the language name denotes.

Addendum: You could always use $^\sharp$ for superscript.

Answer 3

You might do with

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\newcommand{\Csharp}{%
  {\settoheight{\dimen0}{C}C\kern-.05em \resizebox{!}{\dimen0}{\raisebox{\depth}{\#}}}}
\begin{document}
\Huge\Csharp
\end{document}

Here's the result; the second line has \fontseries{b}\selectfont\#, but the strokes seem to be too heavy:

If you prefer to use the music sharp symbol, it might be

\newcommand{\Csharp}{%
  {\settoheight{\dimen0}{C}C\kern-.05em \resizebox{!}{\dimen0}{\raisebox{\depth}{$\sharp$}}}}

Answer 4

Building on the accepted answer and looking at the C# language specification (a .docx...) I came up with this:

\newcommand{\csharp}{C\nolinebreak[4]\raisebox{.6ex}{\includegraphics[scale=.8]{hash-symbol}}}

Which looks like this:

Note that when using LuaLaTex you'll need to add \RequirePackage{luatex85} to the top of the file that you use for generating the PDF due to compatibility issues with the standalone document class. Also note that the Liberation fonts can be found here: https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/

MWE:

\RequirePackage{luatex85}
\documentclass[border=0pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\begin{document}% I get extra space without this comment
\fontspec{Liberation Serif}\#
\end{document}

Answer 5

If you use XeTeX and your font supports it, you can put the Unicode character directly into your source file, or use \symbol{"266F}. With fonts such as Linux Libertine, this looks much nicer than \sharp, which seems to use raw TeX rather than looking for a proper sharp character:

Answer 6

Here’s a version using \ooalign to combine an equal sign with two tightly kerned slashes. It works for all 10 standard sizes from \tiny up to \Huge.

The Good

• The line stroke widths are consistent and feel right (to me).

The Bad

• As you can see from the code below, it’s rather a bit of a hack. I’m sure there are probably more elegant ways to do this. Perhaps someone can improve it and post a follow-up.
• You may need to tweak the positioning parameters if you’re using non-CMR or non-LMR fonts.
• The reason the implentation is so complicated is because the regular slash character is too tall for this, necessitating the use of a smaller sized slash in each case. Everything above \footnotesize uses a smaller slash; the smallest three make do with their respective native slashes.

The Ugly

• Because of calculation rounding issues, the display of this may not look quite right on screen; you may notice the // and the = appearing to be 1 pixel out of alignment in an on-screen PDF viewer at low dpi. It should be fine in print, however. This problem is common with many hand-composited symbols like this one.

Here’s the code with an (almost) MWE:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\makeatletter
\def\Csharp@tiny{5}
\def\Csharp@scriptsize{7}
\def\Csharp@footnotesize{8}
\def\Csharp@small{9}
\def\Csharp@normalsize{10}
\def\Csharp@large{12}
\def\Csharp@Large{14.4}
\def\Csharp@LARGE{17.28}
\def\Csharp@huge{20.74}
\def\Csharp@Huge{24.88}
\newcommand{\Csharp}{%
  \mbox{%
    C%
    \ooalign{%
      \noalign{%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@tiny\vskip-1.11ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@scriptsize\vskip-1.11ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@footnotesize\vskip-1.07ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@small\vskip-1.07ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@normalsize\vskip-1.07ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@large\vskip-1.07ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@Large\vskip-1.07ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@LARGE\vskip-1.07ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@huge\vskip-1.07ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@Huge\vskip-1.07ex\fi%
      }%
      \hss{=}\hss\cr%
      \noalign{%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@tiny\vskip-0ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@scriptsize\vskip-0ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@footnotesize\vskip-0ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@small\vskip-.06ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@normalsize\vskip-.10ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@large\vskip-.10ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@Large\vskip-.10ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@LARGE\vskip-.10ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@huge\vskip-.10ex\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@Huge\vskip-.10ex\fi%
      }%
      \hss{%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@tiny\tiny\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@scriptsize\scriptsize\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@footnotesize\footnotesize\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@small\footnotesize\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@normalsize\footnotesize\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@large\normalsize\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@Large\large\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@LARGE\Large\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@huge\LARGE\fi%
        \ifx\f@size\Csharp@Huge\huge\fi%
        {/}\kern-.26em{/}%
      }\hss\cr%
    }%
  }%
}
\makeatother

\emergencystretch=2em
\narrower\narrower\narrower\narrower\narrower\narrower\narrower
\noindent\Csharp\ (pronounced ``see sharp'') is a multi-paradigm programming language
encompassing strong typing, imperative, declarative, functional, generic,
object-oriented (class-based), and component-oriented programming disciplines.
\vskip 1em
\noindent\tiny\Csharp\,
\scriptsize\Csharp\,
\footnotesize\Csharp\,
\small\Csharp\,
\normalsize\Csharp\par\vskip-.25em
\noindent\large\Csharp\,
\Large\Csharp\,
\LARGE\Csharp\par\vskip-.25em
\noindent\huge\Csharp\,
\Huge\Csharp\par

\end{document}

Answer 7

Using TikZ it's possible to draw the desired symbol manually:

\def\Csharp{C\tikz[x=1em,y=\baselineskip]%
  \draw (0.125,0.15) -- ++(0.15,0.5)%
        (0.325,0.15) -- ++(0.15,0.5)%
        (0.05,0.3) -- ++(0.45,0.0)%
        (0.1,0.5) -- ++(0.45,0.0);}

This has some issues though. For example the symbol doesn't scale all that well with changing font size, but the difference between \Large and \normalsize isn't too bad. Additionally it's impossible to copy "C#" from the resulting PDF file into the clipboard which may or may not be an issue.

Answer 8

For pfdtex I prefere:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\newcommand{\Csharp}{%
  {\settoheight{\dimen0}{C}C\kern-.05em \resizebox{!}{\dimen0}{\raisebox{\depth}{\textbf{\#}}}}}
\begin{document}
\Huge\Csharp
\end{document}

Similar to the above but with thick #, because the thin one does not fit to the C in my eyes.

Answer 9

Here, I take a \# and, in superscript mode, make it the same vertical footprint as ig.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{scalerel}
\newcommand\myhash{$^{\scalerel*{\#}{ig}}$}
\begin{document}
C\myhash
\end{document}

The even simpler C\scalerel*{\#}{X} typesets as

Answer 10

You can try C\verb|#|, if this form suits your purpose.

Answer 11

How about these?

\def\CSH{{C\nolinebreak[4]\hspace{-.05em}\raisebox{.4ex}{\footnotesize\bf \#}}}

A direct variation of Prettiest way to typeset "C++" (cplusplus)?