# LaTeX Can I make vertical separation of $$expressions smaller? #### George Keeling Gold Member I wrote my first LaTeX like this: ... it was easy to calculate that$$ ê^1=\hat x - \frac { \hat y } {\tan \alpha} $$and$$ ê^2=\frac { \hat y } {\sin \alpha} $$where ... Is it possible to make the vertical separation smaller? The first example in the latex primer does not seem to suffer from this problem. I tried $instead of and other problems arose. Related MATLAB, Maple, Mathematica, LaTeX, Etc News on Phys.org #### BvU Science Advisor Homework Helper I wrote my first LaTeX like this: ... it was easy to calculate that ê^1=\hat x - \frac { \hat y } {\tan \alpha} and ê^2=\frac { \hat y } {\sin \alpha} where ... Is it possible to make the vertical separation smaller? The first example in the latex primer does not seem to suffer from this problem. I tried$ instead of$$ and other problems arose.
Yes, a little (1 line). You don't put a line feed after the $$: calculate that$$ ê^1=\hat x - \frac { \hat y } {\tan \alpha} $$and$$ ê^2=\frac { \hat y } {\sin \alpha} $$where ... It seems leaving out the line in front of the$$ doesn't matter, though...

#### Orodruin

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Yes, a little (1 line). You don't put a line feed after the $$: calculate that$$ ê^1=\hat x - \frac { \hat y } {\tan \alpha} $$and$$ ê^2=\frac { \hat y } {\sin \alpha} $$where ... It seems leaving out the line in front of the$$ doesn't matter, though...
As kind of a LaTeX nerd, this is a very common mistake students make when writing LaTeX. The worst part is when they do it mid sentence and a new indented paragraph is started with ”where x is ...”. That really hurts my eyes.

#### RPinPA

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I sometimes go for multiline expressions when I want tighter packing. Everything is inside one set of \$\$...\$\$ but with two backslashes and a new line marking a line break (I'm not sure if the new line is necessary, I just do it for readability). That is, if I write

\$\$ your first line \\
\rm{and} \\
your second line \$\$

I get this:

$$\hat e^1 = \hat x - \frac {\hat y}{\tan \alpha} \\ \rm{and} \\ \hat e^2 = \frac {\hat y}{\sin \alpha}$$

Normally I do that when I have several lines of equations but no text lines in between. You can see that it centered the word "and" along with the equations. I'm still a relative novice with this LaTeX interface myself and not sure if I can left-justify that one text line within the multiline.

By the way, multilines are covered in the primer.

#### George Keeling

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$$your first line \\ \rm{and} \\ your second line$$
If the and was left justified it would be great!
I can't find anything that might do that except \hfill or \hspace{\fill}, but they don't seem to do much.

#### BvU

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$$your first line \\ \rm{and} \phantom {10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000} \\ your second line$$

$$your first line \\ \rm{and} \phantom {10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000} \\ your second line$$

#### George Keeling

Gold Member
\phantom {10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000}
Brilliant! I guess I will have to experiment to find out how many 0's are necessary in this great bodge. The phantom is not mentioned in the PF guide. I have found http://www.icl.utk.edu/~mgates3/docs/latex.pdf which mentions it. \qquad is similar but not as effective. Here it is with half the number of 0's, then x's, which give more bang for your buck:
$$your first line \\ \rm{and} \phantom {100000000000000000000000000} \\ \rm{and} \phantom {xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx} \\ your second line$$

#### Orodruin

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$$your first line \\ \rm{and} \phantom {10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000} \\ your second line$$

$$your first line \\ \rm{and} \phantom {10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000} \\ your second line$$
I would not use this. What looks good is going to be browser and platform dependent. Also, the use of \rm should be {\rm and}, not \rm{and}. \rm is a modifier that does not take arguments, which is why your second line is not regular math font but also included in what \rm is affecting.

#### BvU

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Brilliant! I guess I will have to experiment to find out how many 0's are necessary in this great bodge. The phantom is not mentioned in the PF guide.
I appreciate the irony, and would not qualify it as brilliant, more as: desperate. Point is that MathJax is different from $\TeX/\LaTeX$ in many respects and this horizontal spacing is one of them. I tried \hbox, \hfill and such, but didn't get anything useful - probably for a good reason.

BTW, this sub forum is a mix of genuine LateX and MathJax (I dunno how to filter that). Someone knowledgeable should add a thread on the diffferences and possible workarounds

Signed: $\TeX$ie

#### BvU

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I would not use this. What looks good is going to be browser and platform dependent. Also, the use of \rm should be {\rm and}, not \rm{and}. \rm is a modifier that does not take arguments, which is why your second line is not regular math font but also included in what \rm is affecting.
I agree, it's ugly and dependent. I'm open for alternatives

The \rm was just a copy/paste.

$\text { I had hoped} \textsf {\textsf might look a little better} \ \ \text{than roman}$ but it doesn't match the PF font (name ?) either.

#### RPinPA

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Re: \rm. I've actually been using \text but found \rm referenced in various sources and thought it was more or less equivalent (but more likely to reproduce the default text font) so I experimented with it for this answer.

Looks like, no surprise, I still have a lot to learn.

So do we have a consensus on the best way to left-justify embedded text in a multiline?

#### Orodruin

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So do we have a consensus on the best way to left-justify embedded text in a multiline?
Yes. Don’t.

#### Orodruin

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Also, if you have to include text in a math environment, I suggest using an \mbox.

"Can I make vertical separation of  expressions smaller?"

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