1

I found myself in the precarious situation of having to open many brackets on one side of the equation which are then closed one by one, as in the following example:

  \left( \cdots \left( \left( A_1 \right) * A_2 \right) \cdots \right) * A_n.

The product here is not associative and requires bracketing.

The ellipsis on the left hand side looks ugly to me, too spacious. Is there a more suitable command to do what I'm trying to do here? Would you approach this problem in a different way?

Werner
  • 603,163
Emre
  • 193
  • 4
    First of all, you don't need \left and \right. – egreg Aug 29 '18 at 17:06
  • 2
    What does the title have to do with the question here? Also, if you're concerned about using \cdots, you should probably also consider using something other than * (perhaps \times). – Werner Aug 29 '18 at 17:08
  • 1
    I would show at least up to A_3, as in ( \cdots ( ( ( A_1 ) * A_2 ) * A_3 ) \cdots ) * A_n.. – Steven B. Segletes Aug 29 '18 at 17:08
  • 1
    Does it seem better with {\cdots} (with the braces)? – egreg Aug 29 '18 at 17:15
  • @egreg I trimmed the actual content where A_i are long expressions and * is of the form \times_{other long expression}. Hence the need for \left \right. The use of {\cdots} didn't do anything for me, did they make a difference for you? – Emre Aug 30 '18 at 18:05
  • @Werner An indefinite (or perhaps indeterminate) number of brackets all have to be closed on the left. Also, yes, in reality \times is being used, here I'm trying to keep the notation to a minimum. I was sure there was a symbol for (...( as in \dotsint which does it for multiple integrals. – Emre Aug 30 '18 at 18:09
  • @Emre: If the spacing around \cdots doesn't meet your needs, then you can adjust it. See What commands are there for horizontal spacing? For example, you can use \!\!\cdots\!\!... – Werner Aug 30 '18 at 18:55
  • @Werner Thanks, that's a good tip and gets rid of the excess spacing around \cdots. Do you know if there is a way to coerce the three dots coming from \cdots to compress together as well? – Emre Aug 30 '18 at 19:20
  • 1
    @Emre: Indeed. You can use \!\!{\cdot}{\cdot}{\cdot}\!\!. – Werner Aug 30 '18 at 20:21

1 Answers1

3

You can manipulate the spacing around symbols just the way you please. Using some negative spaces and braces around \cdots, you can create \tightcdots:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\tightcdots}{\!\!{\cdot}{\cdot}{\cdot}\!\!}

\begin{document}

\[
  \left( \cdots \left( \cdots \left( \frac{A}{2} \right) \times A_2 \right) \cdots \right) \times A_n.
\]

\[
  \left( \tightcdots \left( \tightcdots \left( \frac{A}{2} \right) \times A_2 \right) \tightcdots \right) \times A_n.
\]

\end{document}
Werner
  • 603,163