: Should I use 4x or 4✕? I am editing the text of a medical document. We are describing the function of the heart. METS (metabolic equivalent for task) = the number of calories and the

@Hamaas979

In normal paragraph text, preferred style is to write this out in words, "four times", unless for reasons of space or clarity you are compelled to shorten it to "4 times" or worse, "4×".

Don't use "4x" with a lower-case X. This would perhaps be understood, but it looks like an x, not a multiplication sign, and is wrong.

And don't use "4✕". That's a 'dingbat' character U+2715 that prints much larger than desirable in some fonts, and won't even be present in many fonts. Dingbats are a historical hang-over from the Zapf Dingbats font of the '70s, '80s and '90s. Use the standard multiplication sign × U+00D7, if anything.

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@Shanna688

It depends on what kind of document you are typesetting and who the audience is. If you are also including other typesetting fine-tuning of the same kind (en/em dashes, open type figures, custom spacing and so on) and you expect the audience to really observe and appreciate these subtle differences, it would make sense to use the dedicated × character.

Then, if the document is using a lot of formulas like the the 'BMR (Women)' you mentioned, these make more sense with the dedicated × character.

Otherwise, in real life and in normal body text flow people have probably just gotten used to reading a normal '4x' when referring to a multiplier.

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@Turnbaugh909

I see only two reasons to use x instead of ×:


You have to expect that × will cause technical problems.
You consider it not worth the effort.


Otherwise, × is Unicode’s intended character for this purpose. Making it distinct from the letter x is advantageous for searching and other automatisms (of course, this most often works if everybody uses it).

For people using a screen reader or other tools, × increases accessibility. For example, if you write 4×4, you don’t want the screen reader to say four iks four but four times four.

Finally, good font designers can make use of the fact that x and × are used for entirely different purposes and design them accordingly increasing readability:


× will be centred with uppercase numbers, x won’t.
In case of lowercase numbers, the letter x may optically blend in with the numbers.
× will spaced in such a way that it is easier to recognise as a mathematical operator and not as part of the number.
Decorations such as serifs won’t be applied to ×, which makes it easier to recognise as a cross.
In case of blackletter or handwriting typefaces, x may not look like a cross at all.


Here are some examples to illustrate the above:

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