Vertical Space using Overset on a Subscript

[clarinetist]

Hi,

This is my first post (plus I'm kinda new to LaTeX) - hope that I've posted this in the right place. Here's the code I've used:

Code: Select all  •  Open in writeLaTeX

\documentclass {article}
\usepackage{amsmath, MnSymbol, wasysym, amsthm, colonequals, mathtools, tensor, fixltx2e}
\usepackage{dsfont}
\usepackage[margin=2 cm]{geometry}
\textwidth 16.59cm
\textheight 21.94 cm
\begin{document}
\\ $Z_{x:\overset{1}{\overline{n}|}}$
\end{document}

Here's what it produces:

Capture.PNG (1.66 KiB) Viewed 358 times

I want the part that starts with the x to be treated as a regular subscript, i.e. the problem is that there's too much vertical space. I've done a lot of searching and haven't found a solution to this problem.

Thanks for any help!

[cgnieder]

Hi clarinetist,

Welcome to the LaTeX community!

How should it look like? It seems as if you're faking a fraction, but that's probably not it?

BTW: your MWE can still be shortened:

Code: Select all  •  Open in writeLaTeX

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
 $Z_{x:\overset{1}{\overline{n}|}}$
\end{document}

I take it the \\ in the MWE is a leftover? Anyway, I suspect you're using it wrongly. It should rarely be necessary to use \\ anywhere else than in tables and arrays...

• Is it good style to use \newline instead of just leaving a blank line in order to get a new paragraph?
• When to use \par and when \\

Regards

[clarinetist]

Hi cgnieder,

Thanks for the blurb about the \\. This is what I want (minus the bar on top of the Z:

Capture.PNG (737 Bytes) Viewed 335 times

[cgnieder]

Hi cgnieder,

Thanks for the blurb about the \\.

You wouldn't believe how many people use it the wrong way...

There should be better ways of doing this and it still needs tweaking but it might be a start:

Code: Select all  •  Open in writeLaTeX

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\makeatletter
\newcommand*\findabettername@aux[2]{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,inner sep=0pt,baseline=(x.base)]
   \node (x) {\(#1#2\)} ;
   \node[overlay,above,yshift=2pt] at (x) {\(#11\)} ;
   \draw[semithick] (x.north west) -- (x.north east) -- (x.south east) ;
  \end{tikzpicture}
}
\newcommand\findabettername{\mathpalette\findabettername@aux}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\[ Z_{x:\findabettername{n}} \]

\end{document}

Regards