# Electric field symbol

1. ### El Hombre Invisible

Yo! Anyone know of any free font compatible with Word (or that comes with Word!) that has the goddam electric field symbol in it? Whoever came up with that sign had an irrational hatred of word processors.

2. ### Nylex

551
What do you mean by "electric field symbol"? I always thought electric field (strength) was represented by "E".

3. ### El Hombre Invisible

It's like an E, but it's squiggly. It's not electric field strength, it's the vector I'm after. Anyone else?

4. ### Crosson

Do you mean epsilon? It's a greek letter.

$$\epsilon$$

In American textbooks I often see E as the electric field and epsilon as the energy density.

5. ### El Hombre Invisible

No, it's not in the Greek alphabet. If it were, that would be cool since loads of standard fonts have Greek characters.

'E' seems to be the most common symbol for the electric field, but we seem to use another (note to self: must find out why). It's like an E, but more elaborate and... squiggly. It's the best word for it.

So if anyone knows any alternative symbols to 'E' for the electric field, please let me know. Thanks.

6. ### whozum

I've only seen E, here are E's some from the Latex sheet,

$$\mathbb{E} \ \epsilon \ \varepsilon\ \xi$$

I've also seen an E that has the same style as this N, maybe that's what you're looking for:

$$\aleph$$

7. ### dextercioby

12,314
The 4-the letter is a Greek letter called "xi" ,not an "e".:tongue:

Daniel.

8. ### dextercioby

12,314
Do you mean the "E" in the Gothic (German) alphabet ?This one

$$\mathfrak{E}$$ ?

Daniel.

P.S.Electric field strength is a vector.

9. ### Tom Mattson

5,538
Staff Emeritus
Or how about $\cal E$?

10. ### whozum

Epsilon isnt 'E' either, they jus both look like E's :tongue2:

11. ### dextercioby

12,314
Epsilon's is read "e" in any version of Greek .:tongue: While "xi" is read "e",iff the reader's drunk.

Daniel.

12. ### robphy

4,395
Can you use the Equation Editor (not installed by default with MS Word)?
Can you attach a small scan? or name the text you are using?

13. ### inha

576
I think this is the one he's after. I've seen this used in many texts.

14. ### El Hombre Invisible

Hi all. Sorry, none of the above suggestions fit the bill. The reason I couldn't show you what I meant was simply that I couldn't find a wesbite that used it on the internet either - everything uses 'E', so I'm pretty confused why we're using this mad symbol.

It looks a lot like xi, and I've been using that, but I don't think it is, since the textbook has used the xi symbol too and they're clearly different.

But anyway, I have resolved to suffer the embarrassment and attempt to draw this evil bast. Attached as a bmp file. Don't laugh.

File size:
3.7 KB
Views:
73
15. ### whozum

:tongue: dex :tongue:

Thats the one Tom Mattson pasted, except more elaborate (I believe).

16. ### himanshu121

658
My physics teacher often says
"Symbols are not important what do symbol represent is important" :tongue:

17. ### El Hombre Invisible

Is that upper-case epsilon? Dammit, guess what upper-case epsilon is in Word... 'E'! Well, at least that explains the interchangeability of electric field symbols... blame the greeks I guess.

Okay, so does anyone know a font that has $\cal E$? I can't find that either. I guess I could just use a lower case epsilon and up the font size...

18. ### dextercioby

12,314
I have "Caligraphic" fonts installed in my SWP 2.5 (dating 1995).I'm sure they're installed in Miktex and other Windows base Tex editors.You can copy paste it as an image into a Word document,if the stupid MS program doesn't have "Caligraphic" fonts.

Daniel.

19. ### El Hombre Invisible

Guess what the stupid MS program doesn't have...

Poke it, I'll just use the lower-case one and make it reet big.

Thanks everyone.

20. ### Theelectricchild

258
Yeah I noticed that squigly looking E when scanning through a materials science text book--- engineers may often use different symbols than physicists--- but as an EE student... most of the stuff in my EE textbooks is pretty much the same as physics...

although the confusion of EEs using H for magnetic field strength and B for magnetic flux density.

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