Text FormattingLarge default size

Information and discussion about LaTeX's general text formatting features (e.g. bold, italic, enumerations, ...)
Post Reply
niles
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:35 pm

Large default size

Post by niles »

Hi

Please see my MWE:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath} 
\usepackage[sc]{mathpazo}
\usepackage{mhchem}
\begin{document} 
For the transition $\left| {\ce{^1S0}} \right\rangle$ one sees \ldots
\end{document}
I am unhappy about the large size of

Code: Select all

$\left| {\ce{^1S0}} \right\rangle$
. I think it is because of the font mathpazo, but is there a way to reduce it? If I use the standard font (i.e. comment out mathpazo), then it looks OK.

Best,
Niles.

Recommended reading 2024:

LaTeXguide.org • LaTeX-Cookbook.net • TikZ.org

NEW: TikZ book now 40% off at Amazon.com for a short time.

Stefan Kottwitz
Site Admin
Posts: 10345
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:44 pm

Large default size

Post by Stefan Kottwitz »

Hi Niles,

it seems there are at least two reasons:
  • the mathpazo font is higher
  • mhchem raises the indexes
Since you already noticed the first point, let's have a look at the second one. Compare your mhchem formula to a formula made with standard indexes:
mhchem1.png
mhchem1.png (15.08 KiB) Viewed 3057 times
You don't want to change the font, and I guess you don't like to change the way mhchem works with indexes, because it does additional vertical alignment. A workaround would be using \big instead of \left and \right:

Code: Select all

For the transition $\big|{\ce{^1S0}} \big\rangle$ one sees \ldots
mhchem2.png
mhchem2.png (7.55 KiB) Viewed 3057 times
In any way, I recommend to define a macro for this expression and use the macro in the text. This way you can easily adjust it later, if desired.

Stefan
LaTeX.org admin
niles
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:35 pm

Re: Large default size

Post by niles »

Thanks!

Best wishes,
Niles.
Post Reply