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### slightly small font needed for stackrel'ing

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I want to have an equal by definition symbol of an equal sign with the
roman letters "def" above it.  I currently use the macro

\newcommand{\ebd}{\ensuremath{\stackrel{{\text{\tiny def}}}{=}}}

but the "def" is slightly too big -- it extends over the equal sign so
when aligning \ebd and "=" symbols in a multiline formula things don't
align up exactly.  Is there an easy way to get something slightly
smaller than the tiny version?  Thanks, ds


 0

On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:15:11 -0700 (PDT), Dave94705
<david.jobman.schwartz@gmail.com> wrote:

>I want to have an equal by definition symbol of an equal sign with the
>roman letters "def" above it.  I currently use the macro
>
>\newcommand{\ebd}{\ensuremath{\stackrel{{\text{\tiny def}}}{=}}}
>
>but the "def" is slightly too big -- it extends over the equal sign so
>when aligning \ebd and "=" symbols in a multiline formula things don't
>align up exactly.  Is there an easy way to get something slightly
>smaller than the tiny version?  Thanks, ds

Making it small enough to not extend past the edges of the
"=" sign would make it much too small and ugly. Even \tiny
is too small. As I see it, you have three choices:

1. Use a special symbol for "equal by definition". Some
symbols I've seen used for this include \doteq, \equiv,
\hateq (from, e.g., the MnSymbols package), and := or
the nicer looking \mathrel{\mathop:}=. The colon-equal
is typically wider than = and also ruins alignments.

2. Use a different alignment environment that aligns equal
signs at their centers rather than on the left. You can
get this with array with a little work:
$\setlength{\arraycolsep}{0pt} \begin{array}{rcl} A&{}\ebd{}&2\\ C&{}={}&A \end{array}$

3. Don't put \ebd in an alignment with other relations
Usually one can arrange for this, possibly even
resulting in improved exposition.

Dan
To reply by email, change LookInSig to luecking

 0
Reply LookInSig (1047) 8/12/2010 9:53:13 PM

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