Math & Science ⇒ txfonts | Broken Underbrace and Integral

[AlmostSurelyRob]

Dear All,

I am struggling a bit with \underbrace command. I have noticed that if \underbrace is under a long term it gets broken into pieces and the "junctions"(?) are not very smooth.

This problem is not present when I include txfonts package where \underbrace is overridden. However, with txfonts my integral sign become unnaturally curved...

This is merely an aesthetic problem but is there any way to use smooth \underbrace and the standard LaTeX integral sign?

Here's a minimal example. Please remove the txfonts package to see the difference:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}

\title{MyTitle} 
\date{\today} 
%\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{txfonts}
%\usepackage{wasysym}
%\usepackage{esint}
\begin{document}
\begin{equation}
  \int \underbrace{
  u \nabla u
  }_{\textrm{convection}}
\end{equation}
\end{document}

I would appreciate your comments or any hints.

Robert

[Frits]

As far as I know, there is no real solution for this. The under/overbrace commands are divided into parts (a straight and a curly one) and depending on the font you use, the straight part differs in thickness.

Btw, when printing the document, the problem is solved (if I recall correctly).
Also, you might want the check the mathtools manual to see how the problem is handled with that package.

[shadgrind]

Frits is correct that the printed version won't show those defects (I just printed it to verify).

Just for comparison, I looked at how the underbrace appears when using 3 different math fonts: the default Computer Modern, txfonts, and Fourier-GUTenberg. I magnified by a factor of 64, and saw that all three are flawed; they all mess up the pointy tip in some way.

Here's Computer Modern (notice the blocky tip):

ubrace_cmodern.png (16.3 KiB) Viewed 5082 times

Here's txfonts (notice the crossed tip):

ubrace_txfonts.png (16.83 KiB) Viewed 5082 times

Here's Fourier-GUTenberg (notice the gap at the tip):

ubrace_fourier.png (12.39 KiB) Viewed 5082 times

I think the txfonts version looks the best.

[AlmostSurelyRob]

Thank you for all of your replies. I also like txfonts \underbrace best. Unfortunately, I do not like its integral sign... but since the problem vanishes after printing I can relax a bit.