Re: Super and Subscripts

Dave Raggett (dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
Wed, 18 Jan 95 13:56:33 EST

> The `invisible parentheses' idea is similar to what UNIX's EQN
> preprocessor does with '{}'. For example, the equation would be
> something like this in EQN:

> .EQ
> E ~=~ { c sup 2 } m
> .EN
> where we use '{}' to force the superscript 2 to belong to 'c'.

The HTML 3.0 DTD uses SHORTREFs to allow you to abbreviate a number of
tags within the MATH element. The example becomes:

<math>E = c^2^m</math>

while

> r , r -b +- sqrt(b^2 - 4ac)
> 1 2 = ---------------------
> 2a

is represented by:

<math>r_1_, r_2_ = {-b &ges; <root>b^2^ - 4 a c)<over>2 a}</math>

Note: the shortrefs for _ ^ and { } are only available in math mode.

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> tel: +44 272 228046 fax: +44 272 228003
Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Filton Road, Bristol BS12 6QZ, United Kingdom