[comp.text.tex] LaTeX Math Format question

shimeall@taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil (timothy shimeall) (10/27/90)

I have a somewhat complex formula to format.  It has four terms, that
each consist of a ratio with four terms in the numerator and the
product of two variables in the denominator.  Due to the variables
involved (which for complex reasons I cannot easily rename) the length
of each of the ratios is longer than will fit on a line.  My fix to
this was to make the numerator an array environment, splitting the 
four terms onto two lines.  However this has caused the enclosing 
parentheses to be larger than the expression they enclose (apparently,
TeX or LaTeX insists that the parentheses be centered at the ratio
line).  This looks unsightly, leaving me with two questions:

a) Is there any way to fix it so the parentheses are the actual
   size of the expression?  Failing this, is there any way in LaTeX
   to change the size of the font used in one part of an expression?
   (i.e., drop the font size of the array so it is closer to the
          height of the denominator)

b) More fundamentally, is there a better way to format this kind of
   thing?  Right now, each of the four ratio terms looks like this

   Variable1[exp1,exp2]+Variable2[exp3,exp4]-
   Variable3[exp5,exp6]+Variable4[exp7,exp8]
   ----------------------------------------- Variable5 Variable6
           Variable7   Variable 8

   Acceptable to me, but not great.
						Tim

-- 
Tim Shimeall (x2509)

eijkhout@sp1.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout) (10/28/90)

shimeall@taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil (timothy shimeall) writes:


>I have a somewhat complex formula to format.  It has four terms, that
> [... explanation deleted ...]
>   Variable1[exp1,exp2]+Variable2[exp3,exp4]-
>   Variable3[exp5,exp6]+Variable4[exp7,exp8]
>   ----------------------------------------- Variable5 Variable6
>           Variable7   Variable 8

Both fractions and extendable delimiters are centered around
a line at height of approximately half the x-height.
(I think it is \fondimen9\textfont2 or something like that).

Acting on your two suggestions:

1/ You may try
     \left( \vcenter{$  big expression   $} \right)
which centers your expression without regard for the
internal centering.

2/ If you want to switch font sizes you could try
        {\scriptstyle   numerator
         \over
         \textstyle     denominator
        }

Victor.