# Z in LaTex

What's the best way to use Z as a symbol for the integers on the forum's LaTex?

One source on the web (http://www.proofwiki.org/wiki/Symbols:Z) says the symbols for the integers can be written in LaTex as backslash Z. On the forum, that currently shows up as the two characters. $\Z$

That source also say the notation $Z_+$ is deprecated in favor of $Z_{\ge 0}$. I approve! I never can remember whether $Z_+$ includes zero or not.

D H
Staff Emeritus
Maybe there is some obscure LaTeX package where \Z prints as blackboard bold Z, but not in any one that I know of. Just use \mathbb Z: $\mathbb Z$.

AlephZero
Homework Helper
Maybe somebody defined the macro \Z to do that in their own package of "useful math stuff", and then forgot it was their own definition.

If you don't care about annoying the LaTeX style police, or getting nice error messages if you use it in the wrong context etc, all you need to do is

\def\Z{\mathbb Z}

... and do the same for everything else that you type repeatedly!

EDIT: It's defined in a template file in "Getting up and running with AMS LaTeX", which might be in your system called amshelp.pdf. So I guess it's "sort of official", but not actually in a LxTeX package.

Last edited:
Fredrik
Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
What's the best way to use Z as a symbol for the integers on the forum's LaTex?
I use \mathbb Z. ##\mathbb Z##.

That source also say the notation $Z_+$ is deprecated in favor of $Z_{\ge 0}$. I approve! I never can remember whether $Z_+$ includes zero or not.
I've been using ##\mathbb Z^+## for the positive integers. Is the plus usually written downstairs?

If we use the convention that the natural numbers ##\mathbb N## includes zero, then it wouldn't make much sense to include 0 in ##\mathbb Z^+##, since we can write ##\mathbb N## when we want to include it.