Sstrhsrtj

Here's a TikZ solution:

documentclass{article}

usepackage{tikz}

newcommand*circled[1]{tikz[baseline=(char.base)]{

            node[shape=circle,draw,inner sep=2pt] (char) {#1};}}

begin{document}

Numbers aligned with the text:  circled{1} circled{2} circled{3} end.

end{document}

It's just a node. TikZ options are used to align the base line, to adjust the size and to get the circle shape. You're free to choose further options regarding size or circle thickness (option thick). There's more: for example you could even name the nodes by another argument to connect them by arrows later.

If one like to use it for an enumerated list, for example, it's easy but has to be protected:

usepackage{enumitem}

...

begin{enumerate}[label=protectcircled{arabic*}]

item First item

item Second item

item Third item

item Fourth item

end{enumerate}

The quickest fix would be to use the raisebox command. I've played around with it a bit, and it seems lowering the text by 0.9pt puts the figure approximately in the center:

textcircled{raisebox{-0.9pt}{8}}

You could play around with it to get the absolute center but it's definitely between 0.9 and 1pt. I got the idea here. It seems the textcircled command works best for text! But, anyway, this should solve your problem.

morbusg already mentioned that some fonts have encircled numbers as Unicode glyphs and showed how to embed them directly. Some fonts provide a more user-friendly interface for accessing the numbers, e.g. Linux Libertine and Junicode. Obviously, this means that we’re deviating from your requirement to use Computer Modern. The advantage of these Unicode numbers presumably is that they were crafted by a font designer, so there shouldn’t be any need for fine-tuning.

Here’s a simple proof-of-concept (You also need to have the junicode package installed):

documentclass{article}

usepackage{fontspec}

usepackage{libertine}



begin{document}

libertineGlyph{uni2460} libertineGlyph{uni24F5} libertineGlyph{uni2776}



{fontspec[Ligatures=Discretionary]{Junicode}[1] [[1]] <1>}

end{document}

These methods are described in the respective documentations.

Here’s an even more comfortable way of accessing these sets of numbers. The doubly circled numbers are (per Unicode) available from 1 to 10, the others from 0 to 20.

documentclass{article}

usepackage{fontspec}

usepackage{libertine}

usepackage{pgf} % for the calculation

% libcirc and libcircblk display their '0' if the parameter is out of range

newcommand{libcirc}[1]{pgfmathparse{

    ifthenelse(#1 > 0 && #1 < 21, Hex(9311+#1), Hex(9450)

    }libertineGlyph{unipgfmathresult}}

newcommand{libcircdbl}[1]{pgfmathparse{Hex(9460+#1)}libertineGlyph{unipgfmathresult}}

newcommand{libcircblk}[1]{pgfmathparse{

    ifthenelse(#1 > 0 && #1 < 11, Hex(10101+#1),

        ifthenelse(#1 > 10 && #1 < 21, Hex(9450-10+#1),

            Hex(9471)

        )

    )

    }libertineGlyph{unipgfmathresult}}



newcommand{juncirc}[1]{{fontspec[Ligatures=Discretionary]{Junicode}[#1]}}

newcommand{juncircdbl}[1]{{fontspec[Ligatures=Discretionary]{Junicode}[[#1]]}}

newcommand{juncircblk}[1]{{fontspec[Ligatures=Discretionary]{Junicode}<#1>}}



usepackage{pgffor} % just for the demo loop

setlength{parindent}{0pt} % just for the demo

begin{document}

section{Linux Libertine}

foreach x in {0,...,20} {libcirc{x} }



foreach x in {1,...,10} {libcircdbl{x} }



foreach x in {0,...,20} {libcircblk{x} }



section{fontspec{Junicode}Junicode}

foreach x in {0,...,20} {juncirc{x} }



foreach x in {1,...,10} {juncircdbl{x} }



foreach x in {0,...,20} {juncircblk{x} }

end{document}

PGF is overkill for this one application, but if you already have it loaded, you can use it:

documentclass{article}

usepackage{tikz}



newcommand{pgftextcircled}[1]{

    setbox0=hbox{#1}%

    dimen0wd0%

    dividedimen0 by 2%

    begin{tikzpicture}[baseline=(a.base)]%

        useasboundingbox (-thedimen0,0pt) rectangle (thedimen0,1pt);

        node[circle,draw,outer sep=0pt,inner sep=0.1ex] (a) {#1};

    end{tikzpicture}

}



newcommand{pangram}{noindent{The textcircled{0} quick textcircled{1} brown textcircled{2} fox textcircled{3} jumps textcircled{4} over textcircled{5} the textcircled{6} lazy textcircled{7} dog.}

}

begin{document}



begin{minipage}{0.5textwidth}

pangram

bigskip



lettextcircled=pgftextcircled

pangram

end{minipage}



end{document}

As you can see there's some extra space around the circles compared to textcircled but it's not bad.

pre-post edit: I see Stefan and morbusg have beat me to the punch. Oh well.

The mathdesign package defines figurecircled which has better spacing for numbers than textcircled does.

The mathdesign package is incompatible with amsfonts and amssymb but if you're using a mathdesign font anyway, that's not a problem.

From symbols.pdf, it looks like pifont can do what you want with ding{172} through ding{181} or ding{192} through ding{201}.

Or the igo package with whitestone{1} through whitestone{99}, although that's meant for typesetting Go boards.

It sounds like the solution has been found, but here's a simple comparison.

documentclass{article}

usepackage{pifont}

defX#1{%

        #1%

        textcircled{#1}%

        raisebox{.9pt}{textcircled{raisebox{-.9pt}{#1}}}%

        ding{numexpr171+#1relax}%

}

begin{document}

X0X1X2X3X4X5X6X7X8X9

end{document}

@Stefan's answer is good, however, I improved his answer.

Firstly, if circled{1} and circled{10} are placed together, the two circles will not be the same size, so I added an optional parameter to the circled command. The optional parameter was regraded as a placeholder to make sure that these circles appear in the same size.

Additionally, since I'd used ifblank, which is provided by package etoolbox, to check if the optional parameter was provided, I used robustify to make the command robust. This bypassed the disadvantage of using DeclearRobustCommand, mentioned by @Stefan in a comment of his answer. Thus, the protact is no longer needed.

Code:

documentclass{article}

usepackage{enumitem}

usepackage{tikz}

usepackage{etoolbox}

newcommand{circled}[2]{%

  tikz[baseline=(char.base)]{%

    node[shape = circle, draw, inner sep = 1pt]

    (char) {phantom{ifblank{#1}{#2}{#1}}};%

    node at (char.center) {makebox[0pt][c]{#2}};}}

robustify{circled}

begin{document}

mbox{}rlap{rule{.7linewidth}{.4pt}}%

The original version: circled{1} and circled{10}.



mbox{}rlap{rule{.7linewidth}{.4pt}}%

The improved version: circled[10]{1} and circled[10]{10}.



newcommand{dcircled}[1]{circled[00]{#1}}

begin{enumerate}[label=dcircled{arabic*}, noitemsep]

item I

item am

item happy

item to

item join

item with

item you

item today

item in

item what

item will

item go

item down

item in

item history

item as

item the

item greatest

item demonstration

item for

item freedom

item in

item the

item history

item of

item our

item nation.

end{enumerate}

end{document}

Result:

with the default picture commands:

documentclass{article}

usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

usepackage{pict2e,picture}

newsaveboxCBox

newlengthCLength

defCircled#1{sboxCBox{#1}%

  ifdimwdCBox>htCBox CLength=wdCBoxelseCLength=htCBoxfi

    makebox[1.2CLength]{makebox(0,1.2CLength){put(0,0){circle{1.2CLength}}}%

    makebox(0,1.2CLength){put(-.5wdCBox,0){#1}}}}



begin{document}

Huge

foo

Circled{1}

Circled{2}

Circled{ABC}



end{document}

With Plain (stumbled upon this by chance and remembered this question):

defcircled#1{{ooalign{hfillower.1exhbox{#1}hfilcrcrOrb}}}

$circled1 circled2 circled3 ldots circled9 quad circled{23}$

bye

With XeTeX:

fontcircled="Arial Unicode MS"

{circled ➀} Didn't occur to me {circled ➄} earlier that some fonts have {circled ➇} these.

bye

Or maybe with TikZ:

input tikz

baseline ain't so pretty par

baseline ain't so pretty par

baseline tikz node[circle,draw] {2}; ain't par

so pretty tikz[baseline] node[circle,draw] {2}; baseline par

ain't so pretty baseline par

ain't tikz[inner sep=1pt,baseline=-.75ex] node[circle,draw] {2}; so pretty par

baseline tikz[inner sep=2pt,baseline=-.75ex] node[circle,draw] {2}; ain't so par

pretty baseline ain't so par

pretty tikz[inner sep=.25ex,baseline=-.75ex] node[circle,draw] {2}; baseline par

... actually, now it sorta is par

baseline ain't so pretty par

baseline ain't so pretty

bye

Darn, Stefan beat me to it with a nicer one.

Even easier:

textcircled{small{2}}

or

{large textcircled{small 2}} 

or

{Large textcircled{normalsize 2}}

[ed. Segletes, providing MWE & image]

documentclass{article}  

usepackage{enumitem}

begin{document}



begin{enumerate}[label=largeprotecttextcircled{smallarabic*}]

item First item

item Second item

item Third item

item Fourth item

end{enumerate}



    textcircled{small{2}}



or



    {large textcircled{small 2}} 



or



    {Large textcircled{normalsize 2}}

end{document}

Here is a pdfliteral solution. It only works for single numbers.

defcircled#1{%

  #1%

  pdfliteral{

    q .5 w

    10 0 0 10 -2.5 3.5 cm .05 w .5 0 m

    .5 .276 .276 .5 0 .5 c -.276 .5 -.5 .276 -.5 0 c

    -.5 -.276 -.276 -.5 0 -.5 c .276 -.5 .5 -.276 .5 0 c h

    S Q

  }%

}

circled{1} a

circled{2} b

circled{3} c

circled{10}

bye

Using pifont package and symbols from ding{172} to ding{211} you easily have very excellent circled numbers, but if you want circled numbers bigger than 10 we have a problem. As showed by other stackexchange users here, we can solve the problem if numbers are not too big, but things became hard (complex LaTeX codes) and we can have problems if we are writing inside a text (if the circle became big, LaTeX can be forced to enlarge space between lines, or maybe to overlap circle upon adjacent upper and lower lines): things are a bit simpler if we only want circled number in a itemize list. This lack in flexibility could be in some case bothersome. A reasonable solution seems to use the tcolorbox package: after attempts I found that we simply have to add in preamble this

usepackage{tcolorbox} newcommand{ciao}[1]{{setlengthfboxrule{0pt}fbox{tcbox[colframe=black,colback=white,shrink tight,boxrule=0.5pt,extrude by=1mm]{small #1}}}}

and call in the document the command ciao when we want a "circled" number (example: ciao{12} will "circle" the number 12). By the way, the use of fbox in the preamble line is important because without it, rounded box could protrude out of the line on the left or on the right when they are at the margin of the line: this would be very unaesthetic.

Resuming, I see in this solution 3 pros and 1 cons:

• 
  pros: simple code, good working inside a text too, flexibility (big numbers too & in case we can easily play with borders or colors: see 0.5pt or black&white in the preamble line).


• 
  cons: we don't have circles but rounded box, but I find this a reasonable compromise.

An example of application of this method is

Quel ramo del lago di Como ciao{1}, che volge a mezzogiorno, tra due catene ciao{20} non interrotte di monti, tutto a seni e a golfi, a seconda dello sporgere e del rientrare di quelli, vien, quasi a un tratto, a restringersi, e a prender corso ciao{252} e figura di fiume, tra un promontorio a destra, e un'ampia costiera dall'altra parte; ciao{3432} e il ponte che ivi congiunge le due rive, par che renda ancor più sensibile all'occhio questa trasformazione, e segni il punto in cui il lago cessa, e l'Adda ricomincia, per ripigliar poi nome di lago dove le rive, allontanandosi di nuovo, lascian l'acqua distendersi e rallentarsi in nuovi golfi e in nuovi seni.

that gives

please note that numbers doesn't protrude and that the space between lines is always the same: no matter if we have a number or not. In short, this almost circled numbers works very well even if they are inside a text.