# A better notation to denote arcs for an American high school textbook

For years, I've been using a hobbled together command to get the arc notation as used in the textbooks adopted by high schools in my area. I'm not really all that pleased with the result: it's just barely tolerable. I figured someone in the community here might have a better solution to what I've been getting by with for several years.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
%% my poor man's solution to arc notation
\newcommand{\tarc}{\mbox{\large$\frown$}}
\newcommand{\arc}[1]{\stackrel{\tarc}{#1}}
%%
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}

\begin{align*}
\arc{AC} \\
\arc{ICK}
\end{align*}

\end{document}

-
Check texdoc symbols-a4 for \wide and especially \wideparen. – Qrrbrbirlbel Feb 4 '13 at 3:13
Did you see the related question frown and mathop/stackrel/overset? You can use \widearc with the kpfonts or fourier packages, but these change your fonts. \wideparen from yhmath or a few other packages, mentioned there, also works. – Kundor Feb 4 '13 at 3:16

A solution along the lines of Werner's, but that avoids its shortcomings, first of all the dependency on tipa:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\makeatletter
\DeclareFontFamily{U}{tipa}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{tipa}{m}{n}{<->tipa10}{}
\newcommand{\arc@char}{{\usefont{U}{tipa}{m}{n}\symbol{62}}}%

\newcommand{\arc}[1]{\mathpalette\arc@arc{#1}}

\newcommand{\arc@arc}[2]{%
\sbox0{$\m@th#1#2$}%
\vbox{
\hbox{\resizebox{\wd0}{\height}{\arc@char}}
\nointerlineskip
\box0
}%
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

$\arc{AC}$ $\arc{BAD}$ $\arc{ICK}$ $\arc{GOOD}_{\arc{xyz}}$

\end{document}

A different solution with the yhmath font:

\documentclass{article}

\DeclareFontFamily{OMX}{yhex}{}
\DeclareFontShape{OMX}{yhex}{m}{n}{<->yhcmex10}{}
\DeclareSymbolFont{yhlargesymbols}{OMX}{yhex}{m}{n}
\DeclareMathAccent{\wideparen}{\mathord}{yhlargesymbols}{"F3}

\begin{document}

$\wideparen{AC}$ $\wideparen{BAD}$ $\wideparen{ICK}$ $\wideparen{GOOD}_{\wideparen{xyz}}$

\end{document}

-
Always something to learn from your answers. Thank you. – A.Ellett Dec 27 '15 at 19:01

tipa's \texttoptiebar looks useable:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx,tipa}% http://ctan.org/pkg/{graphicx,tipa}
\newcommand{\arc}[1]{{%
\setbox9=\hbox{#1}%
\ooalign{\resizebox{\wd9}{\height}{\texttoptiebar{\phantom{A}}}\cr#1}}}
\begin{document}