Circled Numbers in LaTeX
May. 13, 2025 • Updated May. 13, 2025
In LaTeX, we can type circled numbers using commands provided by pifont package12:
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\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pifont}
\begin{document}
\noindent
\ding{172}\ding{173}\ding{174}\ding{175}\ding{176}\ding{177}\ding{178}\ding{179}\ding{180}\ding{181}\\
\ding{182}\ding{183}\ding{184}\ding{185}\ding{186}\ding{187}\ding{188}\ding{189}\ding{190}\ding{191}\\
\ding{192}\ding{193}\ding{194}\ding{195}\ding{196}\ding{197}\ding{198}\ding{199}\ding{200}\ding{201}\\
\ding{202}\ding{203}\ding{204}\ding{205}\ding{206}\ding{207}\ding{208}\ding{209}\ding{210}\ding{211}\\
\end{document}
Note that if we want to use them in the equation environment, the command should be wrapped in the \text command:
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\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pifont}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
\begin{equation}
\text{\ding{172}},\text{\ding{173}},\text{\ding{174}},\text{\ding{175}},\text{\ding{176}},\text{\ding{177}},\text{\ding{178}},\text{\ding{179}},\text{\ding{180}},\text{\ding{181}}
\end{equation}
\end{document}
otherwise they are not visible. However, as can be seen, this method is sort of limited – for example we can’t type circled 11 in this way.
There is another way, i.e., using the \textcircled command3:
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\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\textcircled{1},\textcircled{2},\textcircled{3},\textcircled{4},\textcircled{5},\textcircled{6},\textcircled{7},\textcircled{8},\textcircled{9},\textcircled{10},\textcircled{11},\textcircled{12},\textcircled{13},\textcircled{14},\textcircled{15},\textcircled{16},\textcircled{17}
\end{document}
but at this time we can see some numbers exceed the circle.
To solve this problem, Stefan provides an elegant way by using TikZ package4:
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\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\newcommand*\circled[1]{\tikz[baseline=(char.base)]{
\node[shape=circle, draw, inner sep=0pt,
minimum width=1em] (char) {\footnotesize #1};}}
\begin{document}
\circled{1},\circled{2},\circled{3},\circled{4},\circled{5},\circled{6},\circled{7},\circled{8},\circled{9},\circled{10},\circled{11},\circled{12},\circled{13},\circled{14},\circled{15},\circled{16},\circled{17}
\end{document}
which is very flexible.
References