Which way of using parentheses looks better?

Question

I feel like the parentheses look strange here:

\begin{equation}
  uv=4\left(\frac{a}{2}\right)^2\left(\frac{b}{2}\right)^2=
  4\left(\frac{s}{2}\right)^2\left(\frac{t}{2}\right)^2
\end{equation}

Do people think they should have the same heights or be like this?

I was about to suggest using \middle for the inner brackets, but it turns out that \middle doesn't play well with superscripts. — David R, May 16 '18 at 07:16

angrydust · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-14T14:39:07.820

22

If you use \biggl and \biggr in place of \left and \right it looks great!

\begin{equation}
uv=4\biggl(\frac{a}{2}\biggr)^2\biggl(\frac{b}{2}\biggr)^2=4\biggl(\frac{s}{2}\biggr)^2\biggl(\frac{t}{2}\biggr)^2
\end{equation}

The reason why the brackets look a different size is because a and s are x-height letters, whereas b and t are ascenders, so in the latter case the fraction is "taller" and consequently so are the brackets.

edited May 14 '18 at 14:39

answered May 14 '18 at 14:34

angrydust

458

6

\biggl and \biggr are better... – Andrew Swann May 14 '18 at 14:39
@AndrewSwann It didn't seem to make a visible difference, but good practice nonetheless! – angrydust May 14 '18 at 14:42
See https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/1232/15925 for the differences... – Andrew Swann May 14 '18 at 17:40
2

And some ^{\!\!2} in the exponent. I would use probably \Bigl( .. \Bigr) so it kind of depends on taste. – Manuel May 15 '18 at 05:46

Which way of using parentheses looks better?

1 Answers1