# Adding white space under a letter or symbol [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
Nice-looking p-th roots

There is symbol overlap in $\sqrt[a_1]{x}$. Is there a way to increase the vertical position of $a_1$?

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
$\sqrt[a_{1}]{x}$.
\end{document}

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## marked as duplicate by Werner, Marco Daniel, percusse, doncherry, Stefan Kottwitz♦May 18 '12 at 23:53

Try: $\sqrt[\raisebox{\depth}{$\scriptstyle a_{1}$}]{x}$. –  Marco Daniel May 18 '12 at 16:47
Using the \raisebox command, for example: $\sqrt[\raisebox{4pt}{{\scriptsize$a_1$}}]{x}$. See the help for the command: raisebox help. –  OSjerick May 18 '12 at 16:56

if you're using the amsmath package, you can use \uproot:

$\sqrt[\uproot{2} {a_{1}}]{x}$.


some experimentation may be required to determine the best spacing.

there's also \leftroot to shift the index horizontally.

both \uproot and \leftroot will accept a negative value to shift the index in the opposite direction.

by the way, this has been addressed before, in using-leftroot-uproot-with-closed-square-root-symbol and nice-looking-p-th-roots.

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Here's an option, in the form of a new command \Sqrt[<index>][<raise>]{<root>}:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xparse}% http://ctan.org/pkg/xparse
\NewDocumentCommand{\Sqrt}{O{} O{0pt} m}{%
\sqrt[\raisebox{#2}{$\scriptscriptstyle#1$}]{#3}%
}
\begin{document}
$\sqrt[a_{1}]{x}$. $\Sqrt[a_{1}]{x}$.
$\Sqrt[a_{1}][1pt]{x}$. $\Sqrt[a_{1}][2pt]{x}$.
\end{document}


It may be futile though to introduce a new command for a very small case. On a side note, using subscripts in \scriptscriptstyle (the font size used to indicate the root index), doesn't translate very well (note the similarly-sized 1 compared to a).

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This is perfect! Thank you. –  user02138 May 18 '12 at 16:54
Excelent answer!. –  OSjerick May 18 '12 at 17:01