## LaTeX forum ⇒ Math & Science ⇒ How a math delimiter could be placed above baseline?

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kornaros
Posts: 40
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 12:11 am

### How a math delimiter could be placed above baseline?

I am trying to put \left[ or other well know delimiters in the front of a box something like
baseline \_ $\left[ \rule[0ex]{3cm}{4cm}\right.$
As you could see the bracket is far below the box and with different height! Is it possible to find a way so that the delimiters respect the dimensions and the position of the object(image, box, no below baseline etc)?

Tags:

Stefan Kottwitz
Posts: 9416
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:44 pm
Hi kornaros,

you could use \vcenter to center the object at the baseline. Then, the delimiters match top and bottom.

\documentclass{article}\begin{document}baseline \_ $\left[ \vcenter{\hbox{\rule[0ex]{3cm}{4cm}}}\right.$\end{document}

Stefan

kornaros
Posts: 40
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 12:11 am
Thank you for your answer! The bracket [ have to respect the position of the box. In otherwords \vcenter centers everything on the middle of the baseline! I just want to put the brackets [ at the right position (at the front of the box...)! Thanks!

kornaros
Posts: 40
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 12:11 am
Another strange result: The \left is not well defined! If one make some experiments with boxes of different heights like
$\left[ \vcenter{\hbox{\rule[0ex]{2cm}{1.89cm}}}\right.$$\left[ \vcenter{\hbox{\rule[0ex]{2cm}{2.4cm}}}\right.$
etc. then the brackets are not fit the boxes with the same accuracy! You could see this by taking many different values of the heights of the boxs. I can not understand the reason...

Stefan Kottwitz
Posts: 9416
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:44 pm
Those delimiters are built from symbols, so not perfectly scalable but just near the height as much as available symbol font delimiters and delimiter building pieces allow.

With a drawing package, such as TikZ, brackets or braces can be drawn in an exact way.

Stefan