Text Formatting ⇒ Best space after ordinal superscript?

[clemens]

Hello,

I am a beginner using Latex (XeTex) with Lyx.
I notice that when I make the pdf out of my tex/lyx file the space between an ordinal's superscript (ex. 3rd, 11th etc.) and the following word is quite big and not so nice.
I used the commad \textsuperscript for the superscript and afterwards I tried putting varoius types of space (normal, thin, half quad, custom 0.1 em, interworw space), but none proved satisfactory.
I know there is the engord package to deal with these things automatically, but being a beginner and using Lyx (I don't know many tex commands), I am not able to use it (I can barely manage preamble code and random tex commands, but my attempts haven't worked).
Thanks for any suggestion.
Cheers

[meho_r]

Hi. Did I understand well: you type some number and than using superscript for suffix, i.e.

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...some text 3\textsuperscript{rd} and more text...

I don't get any unusual results here, not for inserting superscript "LyX's way" (insert > formatting > superscript) or using ERT and typing above command. Please, provide minimum working example.

[clemens]

Thanks for the reply.
I missed the lyx insert superscript option, but still, even this is not exactly very nice.
I am attaching two example files (lyx changed into tex and the relative pdf). For some reason in all the cases the distance seems too much.
Cheers

P.s. I am about to post some more questions , one related to too long page headers, one related to indented footnotes and one regarding xeCJK interfering with some fonts.

[meho_r]

I really can't say what is the best space after ordinals, you'll have to decide that alone, but to keep all spaces the same you may define a new command and use it for ordinals. This way, if you later decide to change the space, you only have to change it once and the change will reflect on all instances.

Use ERT box to define something like this somewhere in your document or in the Preamble:

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\newcommand{\tss}[1]{\textsuperscript{#1}\hspace{1pt}}

You may place whatever name for the command you like instead of tss, and define the space as you like (note \hspace{1pt} command, replace 1pt with your desired space).

In your document, use the above command this way:

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...some text 3\tss{rd}following text...

Note that you shouldn't have a space after {rd} (in case of LyX, after ERT box).

[clemens]

Thank you very much

[gmedina]

Why don't you just use some of the packages designed to typeset ordinal numbers (e.g., engord or nth)?

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\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{engord}

\begin{document}

The \engordnumber{1} element of the list ...

The \engordnumber{1}.

\end{document}

[gmedina]

...
Use ERT box to define something like this somewhere in your document or in the Preamble:

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\newcommand{\tss}[1]{\textsuperscript{#1}\hspace{1pt}}

...

This will generate wrong spacing if the next character is a punctuation sign. This can be solved by loading the xspace package and using something like

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\newcommand{\tss}[1]{\textsuperscript{#1}\xspace}

[clemens]

I didn't notice, but very good to know. Thank you.