Better way to display long division?

Question

I'm currently in the process of trying to create a worksheet for my students with long division problems for them to practice. Unfortunately, the best I've been able to come up with so far in terms of displaying long division like how they write it is:

Which could work if need be, but I thought I'd see if anyone has tooled around with this and come up with something better. To create that, all I did was type:

$\overline{)12345}$

Any suggestions for ways of making that better (so it looks more like what'd you see when using \longdiv) would be awesome.

Answer 1

You can give a definition of a command inspired by the one used in longdiv.sty; something along these lines:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand\Mydiv[2]{%
$\strut#1$\kern.25em\smash{\raise.3ex\hbox{$\big)$}}$\mkern-8mu
        \overline{\enspace\strut#2}$}

\begin{document}

\Mydiv{56}{3678}\quad\Mydiv{3}{37678}

\end{document}

Answer 2

\smash the right paren, so that it doesn't push up the \overline:``

\documentclass{article}
\newcommand\showdiv[1]{\overline{\smash{)}#1}}
\begin{document}
\(\showdiv{12345} \)
\end{document}

If you don't like the curvature of the right paren, you can squeeze it a bit (here, I squeezed it perhaps a bit too much, to 50% of its original width, just to demonstrate)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{scalerel}
\newcommand\showdiv[1]{\overline{\smash{\hstretch{.5}{)}}#1}}
\begin{document}
\(\showdiv{12345} \)
\end{document}

And if you are concerned that squeezing the glyph horizontally makes the stroke too thin, then just nearly overlay two of them:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{scalerel}
\newcommand\showdiv[1]{\overline{\smash{\hstretch{.5}{)}\mkern-3.2mu\hstretch{.5}{)}}#1}}
\begin{document}
\(\showdiv{12345} \)
\end{document}

And, to add the finishing touches:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{scalerel}
\usepackage{stackengine}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\newcommand\showdiv[1]{\overline{\smash{\hstretch{.5}{)}\mkern-3.2mu\hstretch{.5}{)}}#1}}
\let\ph\phantom
\begin{document}
\setstackgap{S}{1.5pt}
\stackMath\def\stackalignment{r}
\(
\stackunder{%
  5 \stackon[1pt]{\showdiv{12345}}{2469}%
}{%
  \Shortstack[l]{{\underline{10}} \ph{1}23 {\ph{1}\underline{20}} \ph{12}34 {\ph{12}\underline{30}} %
   \ph{123}45 {\ph{123}\underline{45}} \ph{1234}0}%
}
\)
\end{document}

Answer 3

I got really prefectionisty about this once upon a time, and created a tikz-based solution:

\documentclass[border=4pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newcommand{\longdivision}[2]{
    \settowidth{\dividendlength}{#1}
    \settowidth{\divisorlength}{#2}
    \settoheight{\dividendheight}{#1}
    \settoheight{\maxheight}{#1#2}
    \settoheight{\divisorheight}{#2}

    \begin{tikzpicture} [baseline=.5pt]
        \node at (-.5*\divisorlength-1pt,.5*\divisorheight) {#2};
        \node at (.5*\dividendlength+5pt,.5*\dividendheight) {#1};
        \draw [thick]  (0pt,-.22*\dividendheight) arc (-70:60:\maxheight*.41 and \maxheight*.82) -- ++(\dividendlength+7pt,0pt);
    \end{tikzpicture}
}

\newlength{\dividendlength}
\newlength{\divisorlength}
\newlength{\dividendheight}
\newlength{\divisorheight}
\newlength{\maxheight}

\begin{document}

\longdivision{$x^2+3x-5$}{$x-3$}

\end{document}

I'm sure it could be improved upon, but I was happy enough with this (and never was happy with the paren + overline solutions).

Answer 4

I combined several ideas from the other answers on this page with some from this page to write long division for generating power series.

It's not perfect, but it's good enough for my purposes. Here's the Fibonacci sequence:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{scalerel}
\setcounter{MaxMatrixCols}{20}

\newcommand{\longdiv}{\smash{\mkern-0.43mu\vstretch{1.31}{\hstretch{.7}{)}}\mkern-5.2mu\vstretch{1.31}{\hstretch{.7}{)}}}}
\begin{document}

\[
\arraycolsep=1pt
\renewcommand\arraystretch{1.2}
\begin{array}{*1r @{\hskip\arraycolsep}c@{\hskip\arraycolsep} *{11}r}
        &          & 1 & + & x & + & 2x^2 & + & 3x^3 & + & 5x^4 & + & \dots  \\
\cline{2-13}
1-x-x^2 & \longdiv & 1 &   &   &   &      &   &      &   &      &   &        \\
        &          & 1 & - & x & - &  x^2 &   &      &   &      &   &        \\
\cline{3-7}
        &          &   &   & x & + &  x^2 &   &      &   &      &   &        \\
        &          &   &   & x & - &  x^2 & - &  x^3 &   &      &   &        \\
\cline{5-9}
        &          &   &   &   &   & 2x^2 & - &  x^3 &   &      &   &        \\
        &          &   &   &   &   & 2x^2 & - & 2x^3 & - & 2x^4 &   &        \\
\cline{7-11}
        &          &   &   &   &   &      &   & 3x^3 & + & 2x^4 &   &        \\
        &          &   &   &   &   &      &   & 3x^3 & - & 3x^4 & - & 3x^5   \\
\cline{9-13}
        &          &   &   &   &   &      &   &      &   & 5x^4 & + & 3x^5   \\
        &          &   &   &   &   &      &   &      &   &      &   & \vdots \\
\end{array}
\]

\end{document}

Answer 5

You can use the longdiv "package". I put package in quotes because loading it using \usepackage{} doesn't work and for whatever reason, you have to load it using \input longdiv.tex.

Then you can do long division using \longdiv{6584}{28}.

After that, you can use package polynom to do polynomial long division as \polylongdiv{x^2+2x+4}{x-1}

Answer 6

there is packaged named "longdivision". it works perfect for this purpose.

Longdivision package provides two commands: \longdivision and \intlongdivision.

if we write \intlongdivision{12345}{13} we get this:

Answer 7

One use case with minimal features (might need to play around with the exact numbers):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
  $x+1\scalebox{1.2}{)}\hspace{-0.35em}\overline{\hspace{0.5em} x^2}$
\end{document}

Answer 8

What about polynom package. If you write

\longdiv{12345}{13}

You obtain

Answer 9

Here is a way to display 2011/3 using \text{ } spaces:

\begin{align*}
&\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }670\\
3 &\overline{\big)2011}\\
&\underline{\text{ }18}\\
&\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }21\\
&\text{ }\text{ }\underline{\text{ }21}\\
&\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }1
\end{align*}

You can tweak the spacing and the numbers for different long divisions. As barbara beeton commented on the question, scaling up the size of the parentheses does help, and that is what I did here.