rendering brackets

[David Carlisle]

On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 at 14:23, Michael J. Baars <
mjbaars1977.tex-live at cyberfiber.eu> wrote:

> On Sun, 2020-03-01 at 16:51 +0000, David Carlisle wrote:
>
> I don't see anything unusual in your output. You have chosen to use
> \left--\right (it is often better to choose a specific size such as
> \bigl..\bigr) but if you use \left..\right then the size of the brackets
> depends on the size of the contained expression  and \frac{1}{a} is taller
> than \frac{a}{1}
>
>
> Yeah, well I did see something unusual. \frac{1}{a} and \frac{a}{1} are
> supposed to be exacly the same height,
>


Perhaps you should ask about that as (with computer modern at least) that
is not the case and so the behaviour of \left\right follows.

Basically 1 and a have the same depth so the depth of the denominators are
the same, but 1 has more height than a and that affects the height of the
numerator and so of the overall fraction.

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\sbox0{$\displaystyle\frac{1}{a}$}
\typeout{1/a: \the\ht0+\the\dp0}

\sbox0{$\displaystyle\frac{a}{1}$}
\typeout{a/1: \the\ht0+\the\dp0}


\end{document}


produces

1/a: 13.20952pt+6.85951pt
a/1: 11.07062pt+6.85951pt


so the first form is over 2pt taller and so gets a larger bracket if you
auto-size the brackets with \left\right.





> that is what the whole experiment is about. Have it your way... if that is
> what you prefer.
>

It isn't a question of what I prefer, I am just stating what the font
metrics specify.

David
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