# How to get mathematical signs? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 11, 2000, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803 "2000-09-11T19:41:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2000, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/1 "2000-09-11T19:41:13Z")
Okay folks, I’m stumped. Flypside asked me “How do you get the root sign to print in vB?” I assumed it was one of the symbols you could get off the alt codes, but after staring at them like a fiend for the past 20 minutes, I’m forced to assume that ain’t so. So . . . my smarties, who can enlighten me? your humble TubaDiva who is suffering from too much Monday and not enough brainpower. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2000, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/2 "2000-09-11T19:59:08Z")
You can’t. The square root symbol (also called a “radical”) is not part of the extended ASCII character set. The only option as I see it, would be X[sup]½[/sup], or X[sup]0.5[/sup] for square roots. If you need a cube root, you could use X[sup]1/3[/sup]. [Edited by UncleBeer on 09-11-2000 at 03:02 PM] ---
**Author:** ![tshirts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@tshirts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tshirts)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2000, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/3 "2000-09-11T22:02:11Z")
That’s one of the symbols I submitted for consideration as new “smilies” in this thread \*\* [New smileys, again.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=31568)\*\* Chronos and I are still waiting for them to be added to the SDMB repertoire. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2000, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/4 "2000-09-11T23:01:11Z")
Thanks, tshirts. I’ve sent email to Ed and Jerry – again – requesting that these be installed at our site. It’s not my choice and not my call, all I can do is ask. Up to the big guys. your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2000, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/5 "2000-09-11T23:27:13Z")
One could also try to approximate the square root symbol using common keyboard characters, but it involves more typing. ```auto \ /------- \/ 121801 = 349 \ 3/--- \/ 27 = 3 ``` ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2000, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/6 "2000-09-12T02:01:22Z")
The font “MS Reference 2” has square roots, but you can’t change the font. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2000, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/7 "2000-09-12T03:33:22Z")
I don’t have the font “MS Reference 2”, but the font “symbol” also has the radical sign. It is alt+0214 , which is Ö in this font. I have considered posting a suggestion in the vBulletin’s message board asking them to find some way for us to change the font without using html code. (I noticed they have disabled html code on their own message board.) “Symbol” has all sorts of things that would be useful in math-related threads, like Greek letters and the upper and lower halves of integral signs. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2000, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/8 "2000-09-12T20:47:49Z")
I, too, would dearly love to see the Symbol font, at least, available for use (you know, just in case I should ever happen to post to a math or physics thread :)), but I must wonder: Would it be readable by our users with Macintoshes or Linux? Does the symbol font or an equivalent typically come installed with other OSes? And if it’s an equivalent font, is Netscape/IE smart enough to make the substitution? Another useful one would be Wingdings, but I suspect that that would have even worse translation problems. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2000, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/9 "2000-09-12T21:46:13Z")
Back when we had HTML enabled, changing fonts was quite simple, of course. I don’t recall any Mac users complaining they couldn’t read posts with alternate fonts. I suspect there’s some type of translation table built into the Mac browsers or maybe even the OS. I can’t verify this since I know nothing about Macs (except that I dislike them), but it seems reasonable that they should be able to convert the page source code to a similar character set. Arnold, you have a Mac at home don’t you? Can you corroborate any of my speculations? ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2000, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/10 "2000-09-12T23:09:11Z")
UncleBeer, get one of those cute little iBooks in a colour to match your lunch pail, and you will learn to love the Macintosh! The Symbol fount is supplied with the MacOS and is identical to the Symbol font you find on Windows. In general characters that go beyond the basic ASCII set have different ASCII values on the MacOS and the Windows OS, which is why in HTML they are represented with those &nnn; sequences of characters, which your browser is then in charge of interpreting correctly. Those are the two reasons why characters in the symbol font, and “special” characters like accented letters or upside down question marks, “¿”, will be seen on both computers correctly. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2000, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-get-mathematical-signs/32803/11 "2000-09-13T02:29:01Z")
Looking at vBulletin’s online [manual](http://www.vbulletin.com/manual/), it looks like you should be able to include the symbol font easily enough from you guys’ control panel. Just go to the “Custom BB codes” thingy and put “[symbol]” in the vB Code option and “\” in the html option. Then you need to figure out “[/symbol]”. If you guys actually do this, I would be ever so grateful. I _seems_ like a pretty easy and safe option to add, and not really a hack, either.