# Overlined capital letter with small parenthesis

I would like to produce a particular symbol represented by a capital letter with an uppercase index and an overline bar between small parenthesis. By looking on the web I found

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
\usepackage{mathtools}

\begin{document}
\newcommand\brabar{\scalebox{.3}{(}\raisebox{-1.7pt}{$-$}\scalebox{.3}{)}}
$\overset{\brabar}{D}\phantom{}^{0}$
\end{document}


which produce something close to what I am looking for (not in a very elegant way). I would simply like to have the (-) overset symbol closer to the D capital letter. Is it possible to do that? Thank you very much in advance.

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Is this supposed to appear in math mode or text mode? – Alenanno Jan 5 at 15:48
Actually, both... – Wellow Jan 5 at 15:54

You can use the stackengine package. Ignore all the commands in the example, I only used those to typeset a compact example.

The commands that are important for you are

% PREAMBLE
\newcommand\brabar{\scalebox{.3}{(}\raisebox{-1.7pt}{--}\scalebox{.3}{)}}

% DOCUMENT
\stackon[.1pt]{<letter>}{\brabar}


\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage{stackengine}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage{pgffor}

\newcommand\brabar{\scalebox{.3}{(}\raisebox{-1.7pt}{--}\scalebox{.3}{)}}

\begin{document}
\newgeometry{textwidth=3.5cm}
\foreach \lett in {A,B,C,...,Z}{
\noindent\stackon[.1pt]{\lett}{\brabar}
}
\restoregeometry
\end{document}

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By using $\stackon[.1pt]{D}{\brabar}\phantom{}^0$ I get what I wanted. Thank you. – Wellow Jan 5 at 15:57
Out of curiosity, how well does this scale in text mode? Math mode sub/superscripts? – Sean Allred Jan 5 at 21:06
@SeanAllred Sorry for the late reply. As in using \Huge? Not really. I'm trying to find a solution to that, maybe group the \brabar components so they scale together, but I'm not sure how to approach it. – Alenanno Jan 6 at 11:40

With this code?

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{accents}
\newcommand\brabar{\scalebox{.3}{(}\raisebox{-1.7pt}{$-$}\scalebox{.3}{)}}
\newcommand\brobor{\smash[b]{\raisebox{0.6\height}{\scalebox{0.5}{\tiny(}}{\mkern-1.5mu\scriptstyle-\mkern-1.5mu}\raisebox{0.6\height}{\scalebox{0.5}{\tiny)}}}}

\begin{document}

$\overset{\brabar}{D}\phantom{}^{0}$

$\accentset{\brobor}{D}\phantom{}^{0}$

\end{document}


-

The main problem is that -- is asymmetrical and $-$ is contained in a very large box. One can demonstrate this using \fbox with \fboxsep=0pt.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\newcommand\brabar{\scalebox{.3}{(}\raisebox{-1.7pt}{$-$}\scalebox{.3}{)}}

\newcommand\brabarb{\scalebox{.3}{(}\raisebox{-1.7pt}[0pt][0pt]{$-$}\scalebox{.3}{)}}

\begin{document}
$\overset{\brabar}{D}\phantom{}^{0} \overset{\brabarb}{D}\vphantom{D}^{0}$
\end{document}


-

A version using TikZ (also not elegant but working, edited to make it appear "naturally" when used within a formula):

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\newcommand{\brabar}[2]{\tikz[baseline]{\node at (0,0.1) {#1};\node at (0,0.28) {\scalebox{.3}{(}\raisebox{-1.7pt}{$-$}\scalebox{.3}{)}};\node at (0.3,0.3) {\scriptsize #2};}}
$\brabar{D}{0}$
\end{document}


The output looks as follows:

You can customize the positioning by adjusting the coordinates.

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Thanks! Nice solution! Anyway if I use it in math mode instead of displaymath I get a vertical shift (example: $B^\pm \to K^\pm \brabar{D}{0}$). How can I fix that? – Wellow Jan 5 at 15:45
@MVal I also noticed this and changed my code. Please try again. – cryingshadow Jan 5 at 15:47