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In LaTeX2 a_1, a_{123} and a^1, a^{123} used to produce subscripts and superscripts respectively. In LaTeX3 superscripts still work the same way, but what happened to subscripts? I suspect the prominent role underscores play in LaTeX3 names has made a change necessary. I tried \_ without success.

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  • I think that when you're writing the actual content, you should have l3 syntax turned off.
    – Seamus
    Mar 21, 2012 at 13:07
  • Not sure what that means, can you elaborate further please.
    – Reinhard Neuwirth
    Mar 22, 2012 at 5:38
  • It means that the expl3 syntax should only be used in internal code, e.g, in packages etc or between \ExplSyntaxOn ...\ExplSyntaxOff and that on document level the _ or : does not have this kind of meaning.
    – Frank Mittelbach
    May 31, 2012 at 16:57

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Within the document, no change should be necessary. If you need to access subscripts within the code section where _ is considered as a letter, you could use \sb which is defined in LaTeX as in plain TeX to have the same definition as the usual _ token. Or if you want a L3 name for it \c_math_subscript_token (which is actually a * rather than a _ but with the right catcode).

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    I am happy to report that \sb does the trick. Thank you David. Your reference to * and to catcodes is beyond my present capability to understand, but I am getting there.
    – Reinhard Neuwirth
    Mar 21, 2012 at 14:24

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