How can I increase the length of the vector sign to be almost equal to the argument?

Question

The standard LaTeX vector looks fine over the lowercase arguments, but too short over the uppercase and multi-letter arguments:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
    \begin{math}
    \\
    \vec{v}\\
    \vec{V}\\
    \vec{AC}\\
    \vec{ABCD}
    \end{math}
\end{document}

Is there any way to make it longer, depending on the argument used?

I'd love it to stretch from above the vertex of A to above the serif of C in the last example (but nothing as drastic as \overrightarrow{A_1C_2}.

Related: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/114321/extensible-vec-instead-of-overrightarrow — Manuel, Sep 26 '16 at 21:42
It's almost a duplicate question, altough I would like to give it another chance, to see if a more plain TeX, more robust, and more complete approach appears. I might give a bounty on that question to revive it. — Manuel, Sep 26 '16 at 21:43

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 26 '16 at 22:15

10

The esvect package has very nice vector arrows, with 8 different arrow tips:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}%
\usepackage{esvect}

\begin{document}

\[ \begin{array}{ll}
        \vec{v}&  \vv{v}  \\
    \vec{V} &  \vv{V}\\
    \vec{AC} &   \vv{AB}\\
    \vec{ABCD} &  \vv{ABCD}
    \end{array} \]
\end{document}

edited Sep 26 '16 at 22:15

Au101

10,278

answered Sep 26 '16 at 22:07

Bernard

271,350

But aren't those arrows just a bit too excessive? Overbearing? – ajeh Sep 27 '16 at 16:37
2

I don't think so, but if you finf it's a little too long on the left side, say, you can write a macro such as, say: \newcommand\myvv[1]{\mkern1.5mu\vv{\mkern-1.5mu#1}}. – Bernard Sep 27 '16 at 17:06

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 11 '20 at 05:46

I really like the esvect package. If you read the documentation (https://www.ctan.org/pkg/esvect), it tells you that you can select the type of arrow that you want. The default option is

\usepackage[d]{esvect}

Although you don't need to add the "d". If you select option "h", then the arrow looks a little more like the one used in \vec.

How can I increase the length of the vector sign to be almost equal to the argument?

2 Answers2