# Equation formatting: spacing between characters

I have the following variable: $\omega_{fo}$ which gives [;\omega_{fo};] . The problem with the output is that there is a quite big separation between the letters f and o.

Is there a way to make them come closer?

NB: the fo stands for forcing---this is why it's in italic (normal math mode) and not written upright.

Thanks a lot...

-

It's recommended to use amsmath if you do serious mathematical typesetting.

\usepackage{amsmath}
...
$\omega_{\textit{fo}}$


With amsmath it's not necessary to specify the text size.

-
Thanks. Yes I use amsmath. Your output seems to have a bigger size for fo than the one in the solution fro @Harrold. Is this the correct way? 1 vote up. –  yCalleecharan Jul 18 '11 at 9:07
In my test the size is correct and it's exactly the same as with \scriptsize. –  egreg Jul 18 '11 at 9:19
Not really. \omega_{\mathit{fo}} and \omega_{\textit{\scriptsize fo}} gives the same output but not \omega_{\textit{fo}}. –  yCalleecharan Jul 19 '11 at 5:44
If you load amsmath the result is the same; it isn't without that package. –  egreg Jul 19 '11 at 6:39
Thanks. Now I see that \omega_{\textit{\scriptsize fo}} gives slightly smaller fo. So I will go for one of the remaining two. And I am choosing to accept your answer instead. –  yCalleecharan Jul 20 '11 at 4:45
$\omega_{\textit{\scriptsize fo}}$


It is the first one.

-
Thanks for the answer. Great! + 1 vote up –  yCalleecharan Jul 18 '11 at 7:03

Another possibility—without switching to text mode—is:

$\omega_{\mathit{fo}}$


However, as the subscript "fo" is an abbreviation rather than the name of a variable I would recommend to use a roman font for it:

$\omega_{\mathrm{fo}}$


See, for instance, http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb18-1/tb54becc.pdf.

-
Thanks. But forcing is not an object. This means that we cannot have it upright. This is a common mistake. But if I had say table, then I would have written say \omega_{\mathrm{tab}}, with tab referring to table. 1 vote up. –  yCalleecharan Jul 19 '11 at 5:46