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Subscript and superscript

A subscript or superscript is a character (number, letter or symbol) that is


(respectively) set slightly below or above the normal line of type. It is usually smaller
than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, while superscripts
are above. Subscripts and superscripts are perhaps most often used in formulas,
mathematical expressions, and specifications of chemical compounds and isotopes, but
have many other uses as well.

In professional typography, subscript and superscript characters are not simply


ordinary characters reduced in size; to keep them visually consistent with the rest of the
font, typeface designers make them slightly heavier than a reduced-size character
would be. The vertical distance that sub- or superscripted text is moved from the
original baseline varies by typeface and by use. Example of subscript and superscript. In each
example the first “2” is professionally designed,
In typesetting, such types are traditionally called "superior" and "inferior" letters, and is included as part of the glyph set; the second
figures, etc., or just "superiors" and "inferiors". In English, most nontechnical use of “2” is a manual approximation using a small
superiors is archaic.[1] Superior and inferior figures on the baseline are used for version of the standard “2.” The visual weight of the
first “2” matches the other characters better. (The
fractions and most other purposes, while lowered inferior figures are needed for
top typeface is Adobe Garamond Pro; the size of
chemical and mathematical subscripts.[2]
the subscript is about 62% of the original
characters, dropped below the baseline by about
16%. The second typeface isMyriad Pro; the
superscript is about 60% of the original characters,
Contents raised by about 44% above the baseline.)
Uses
Subscripts that are dropped below the baseline
Subscripts that are aligned with the baseline
Superscripts that typically do not extend above the ascender line
Superscripts that typically extend above the ascender line
Alignment examples
Software support
Desktop publishing
HTML
TeX
Unicode
OpenType
See also
References
Bibliography
External links

Uses
A single typeface may contain sub- and superscript glyphs at different positions for
different uses. The four most common positions are listed here. Because each position
is used in different contexts, not all alphanumerics may be available in all positions.
For example, subscript letters on the baseline are quite rare, and many typefaces
provide only a limited number of superscripted letters. Despite these differences, all
reduced-size glyphs go by the same generic terms subscript and superscript, which are The four common locations of subscripts and
synonymous with the terms inferior letter (or number) and superior letter (or number), superscripts. The typeface is Myriad Pro.
respectively. Most fonts that contain superscript/subscript will have predetermined size
and orientation that is dependent on the design of the font.
Subscripts that are dropped below the baseline
Perhaps the most familiar example of subscripts is in chemical formulas. For example, the molecular formula for glucose is C6H12O6 (meaning that it
is a molecule with 6 carbon atoms, 12 hydrogen atoms and 6 oxygen atoms).

A subscript is also used to distinguish between different versions of a subatomic particle. Thus electron, muon, and tau neutrinos are denoted νe νμ and
ντ. A particle may be distinguished by multiple subscripts, such asΩ−bbb for the triple bottom omega particle.

Similarly, subscripts are also used frequently in mathematics to define different versions of the same variable: for example, in an equation x0 and xf
might indicate the initial and final value of x, while vrocket and vobserver would stand for the velocities of a rocket and an observer. Commonly,
variables with a zero in the subscript are referred to as the variable name followed bynaught”
“ (e.g. v0 would be read, “v-naught”).

Subscripts are often used to refer to members of a mathematical sequence or set or elements of a vector. For example, in the sequence O = (45, −2,
800), O3 refers to the third member of sequenceO, which is 800.

Also in mathematics and computing, a subscript can be used to represent the radix, or base, of a written number, especially where multiple bases are
used alongside each other. For example, comparing values in hexadecimal, denary, and octal one might write Chex = 12dec = 14oct .

Subscripted numbers dropped below the baseline are also used for thedenominators of stacked fractions, like this: .

Subscripts that are aligned with the baseline


The only common use of these subscripts is for the denominators of diagonal fractions, like ½ or the signs for percent %, permille ‰, and basis point
‱. Certain standard abbreviations are also composed as diagonal fractions, such as ℅ (care of), ℀ (account of), ℁ (addressed to the subject), or in
Spanish ℆ (cada uno/una, "each one").

Superscripts that typically do not extend above the ascender line


These superscripts typically share a baseline with numerator digits, the top of which are aligned with the top of the full-height numerals of the base
font; lowercase ascenders may extend above.

Ordinal indicators are sometimes written as superscripts (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, rather than 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th), although many English-language style guides
recommend against this use.[3] Other languages use a similar convention, such as 1er or 2e in French, or 4ª and 4º in Spanish, Portuguese, Galician and
Italian.

In medieval manuscripts, many superscript as well as subscript signs were used to abbreviate text. From these developed modern diacritical marks
(glyphs, or "accents" placed above or below the letter). Also, in earlyMiddle High German, umlauts and other modifications to pronunciation would be
indicated by superscript letters placed directly above the letter they modified. Thus the modern umlaut ü was written as u . Both vowels and
consonants were used in this way, as in ſhe zze and bo sen.[4] In modern typefaces, these letters are usually smaller than other superscripts, and
their baseline is slightly above the base font's midline, making them extend no higher than a typical ordinal indicator
.

Superscripts are used for the standard abbreviations for service mark ℠ and trademark ™. The signs for copyright © and registered trademark ® are
also sometimes superscripted, depending on the useor the typeface.

On handwritten documents and signs, a monetary amount may be written with the cents value superscripted, as in $8⁰⁰ or 8€⁵⁰. Often the superscripted
numbers are underlined: $8⁰⁰, 8€⁵⁰. The currency symbol itself may also be superscripted, as in$80 or 6¢.

Superscripted numerals are used for the numerators of diagonal fractions, like ¾ or the signs for percent %, permille ‰, and basis point ‱. Certain
standard abbreviations are also composed as diagonal fractions, such as ℅ (care of), ℀ (account of), ℁ (addressed to the subject), or in Spanish ℆
(cada uno/a, “each one”).

Superscripts that typically extend above the ascender line


Both low and high superscripts can be used to indicate the presence of a footnote in a document, like this5 or thisxi. Any combination of characters can
be used for this purpose; in technical writing footnotes are sometimes composed of letters and numbers together, like this.A.2 The choice of low or high
alignment depends on taste, but high-set footnotes tend to be more common, as they stand out more from the text.

In mathematics, high superscripts are used for exponentiation to indicate that one number or variable is raised to the power of another number or
variable. Thus y4 is y raised to the fourth power, 2x is 2 raised to the power of x, and the famous equation E=mc² includes a term for the speed of light
squared. This led over time to an “abuse of notation” whereby superscripts indicate iterative function composition, including derivatives. In an
unrelated use, superscripts also indicate contravariant tensors inRicci calculus.

- 4+
The charges of ions and subatomic particles are also denoted by superscripts. Cl is a negatively charged chlorine atom, Pb is an atom of lead with a
− + +
positive charge of four, e is an electron, e is a positron, and μ is an antimuon.

Atomic isotopes are written using superscripts. In symbolic form, the number of nucleons is denoted as a superscripted prefix to the chemical symbol
3 12 13 131 238 58m 240f
(for example He, C, C, I, and U). The letters m or f may follow the number to indicate metastable or fissionisomers, as in Co or Pu.

Subscripts and superscripts can also be used together to give more specific information about nuclides. For example, 235
92 U denotes an atom of uranium
with 235 nucleons, 92 of which are protons. A chemical symbol can be completely surrounded: 146C2+
2 is an ion of carbon with 14 nucleons, of which
six are protons and 8 are neutrons, there are two atoms a chemical compound.

The numerators of stacked fractions (such as ) usually use high-set superscripts, although some specially designed glyphs keep the top of the
numerator aligned with the top of the full-height numerals.

Alignment examples

This image shows the four common locations for subscripts and superscripts, according to their typical uses. The typeface is Minion Pro, set in Adobe
Illustrator. Note that the default superscripting algorithms of most word processors would set the “th” and “lle” too high, and the weight of all the
subscript and superscript glyphs would be too light.

Another minor adjustment that is often omitted by renderers is the control of the
direction of movement for superscripts and subscripts, when they do not lie on HTML subscripts and superscripts
the baseline. Ideally this should allow for the font, e.g. italics are slanting; most
renderers adjust the position only vertically and do not also shift it horizontally.
This may create a collision with surrounding letters in the same italic font size.
One can see an example of such collision on the right side when rendered in
X6 X6
O8M O8M
HTML (see the figure on the right). To avoid this, it is often desirable to insert a
small positive horizontal margin (or a thin space) (on the left side of the first
superscript character), or a negative margin (or a tiny backspace) before a
subscript. It is more critical with glyphs from fonts in Oblique styles that are Default subscript and
more slanted than those from fonts in Italic style, and some fonts reverse the superscript rendered in Example of possible collision
HTML for fonts in normal of italic styles in HTML.
direction of slanting, so there is no general solution except when the renderer styles.
takes into account the font metrics properties that specifies the angle of slanting,

However the same problem occurs more generally between spans of normal glyphs (non-subperscript and non-subscript) when slanting styles are
mixed.

Software support

Desktop publishing
Many text editing and word processing programshave automatic subscripting and superscripting features, although these programs usually simply use
ordinary characters reduced in size and moved up or down – rather than separately designed subscript or superscript glyphs. Professional typesetting
programs such as QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign also have similar features for automatically converting regular type to subscript or superscript.
These programs, however, may also offer native OpenType support for the special subscript and superscript glyphs included in many professional
typeface packages (such as those shown in the image above).See also OpenType, below.
Comparison of software support
Default values for glyph transformation (non-
OpenType Keyboard shortcuts
professional glyphs)
support for
Software User-
professional Subscript Superscript
glyphs? Size modifiable Superscript Subscript
position position
settings?
OpenOffice.org
No 58% −33% +33% Yes Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + P Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + B
3.3

LibreOffice 5.3 Yes[a] 58% −33% +33% Yes Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + P Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + B

Microsoft Word
Yes 50% −14.1% +40% Manual[b] Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + = Ctrl + =
2015
Adobe
Yes 58.3% −33.3% +33.3% Yes
Illustrator CS3
Adobe Ordinal
Photoshop indicators 58.3% −33.3% +33.3% Manual[b] Alt + Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + = Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + =
CS3 only
math: _
Yes (using math: ^ (caret)
(underscore)
LaTeX XeLaTeX or ≈70%[c] −14%[d] +25%[d] Manual[e] text:
text:
LuaTeX only) \textsuperscript{stuff}
\textsubscript{stuff}[f]
Notes:
[5]
a. Availably by typing a syntax consisting font name, feature tag and its value into Font Name area.
b. Default subscript and superscript options can be overcome by manually changing the font size and raising/lowering text.
c. Dependent on math mode; differs for subsub- and supersuper-scripts.
d. Nominal values; dependent onfontdimen parameters (16 and 17).
e. Changing fontdimen values requires some skill the textual commands can be modified to use the \raisebox command.
f. Requires package.

HTML
In HTML and Wiki syntax, subscript text is produced by putting it inside the tags <sub> and </sub>. Similarly, superscripts are produced with
<sup> and </sup>.[6] The exact size and position of the resulting characters will vary by font and browser, but are usually reduced to around 75%
original size. Note that superscripts are usually placed too high for many typographic purposes.

TeX
In TeX’s mathematics mode (as used in MediaWiki), subscripts are typeset with the underscore, while superscripts are made with the caret. Thus
$X_{ab}$ produces , and $X^{ab}$ produces .

In LaTeX text mode the math method above is inappropriate, as letters will be in math italic, so the command n\textsuperscript{th}will give
nth and A\textsubscript{base} will give Abase (textual subscripts are rare, so \textsubscript is not built-in, but requires the fixltx2e
package). As in other systems, when using UTF-8 encoding, the masculineº and feminineª ordinal indicators can be used as characters, with no need to
use a command.

Superscripts and subscripts of arbitrary height can be done with the \raisebox{<dimen>}{<text>}command: the first argument is the amount
to raise, and the second is the text; a negative first argument will lower the text. In this case the text is not resized automatically, so a sizing command
can be included, e.g. go\raisebox{1ex}{\large home}.

Unicode
Unicode defines subscript and superscript characters in several areas; in particular, it has a full set of superscript and subscript digits. Owing to the
popularity of using these characters to make fractions, most modern fonts render most or all of these as cap height superscripts and baseline subscripts.
The same font may align letters and numbers in different ways. Other than numbers, the set of super- and subscript letters and other symbols is
incomplete and somewhat random, and many fonts do not contain them. Because of these inconsistencies, these glyphs may not be suitable for some
purposes (see Uses, above).
OpenType
Several advanced features of OpenType typefaces are support for professionally designed subscript and superscript glyphs. Exactly which glyphs are
included varies by typeface; some have only basic support for numerals, while others contain a full set of letters, numerals, and punctuation. They can
be available via activating subs or sups tag. Since many of these glyphs are not included in Unicode, they can be turned on if software environment
support optional features, while other typefaces placed them in the Unicode
Private Use Area.

See also
Mathematical notation
Typographical conventions in mathematical formulae
Superior letter
Furigana
Ruby character
Typesetting
Font
Superscripts and Subscripts

References
1. Bringhurst 2005, pp 311–12.
2. Bringhurst 2005, p 309.
3. "UCC EPU: Editing Word files for publication:Making the best of what Word provides" (http://publish.ucc.ie/doc/wordedit?sectoc=5#n
oautostyle). Publish.ucc.ie. 2011-07-03.Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20140103094337/http://publish.ucc.ie/doc/wordedit?s
ectoc=5#noautostyle) from the original on 2014-01-03. Retrieved 2014-01-03.
4. "Archived copy" (http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n2266.pdf)(PDF). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2007061209083
6/http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2266.pdf)(PDF) from the original on 2007-06-12. Retrieved 2008-03-31.
5. "Opentype features now enabled? Documentation?"(https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/82052/opentype-features-now-enabled-do
cumentation/). Ask LibreOffice. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20161230001038/https://ask.libreof
fice.org/en/question/82052/
opentype-features-now-enabled-documentation/)from the original on 30 December 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
6. "Math Unicode Entities". Tlt.its.psu.edu. 2013-06-04.Missing or empty |url= (help); |access-date= requires |url= (help)

Bibliography
Bringhurst, Robert (2005), The Elements of Typographic Style, 3rd ed., Vancouver: Hartley and Marks,ISBN 0-88179-205-5.

External links
Vincent Connare’s type-design standards for Microsoft
Vertical alignment questionsfrom Typophile

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