# Show equation number only once in align environment

I want the equation number to be shown only at the last line, or better, somewhere in the middle of all. So instead of (1), (2), ... only (1). I use \begin{align} ... \end{align}

## 4 Answers

You can use the split environment from the amsmath package:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}

\begin{align}
\begin{split}
a &= b \\
&=c \\
&=d \\
&=e
\end{split}
\end{align}

\end{document}

• you could also simply put \nonumber at the end of each equation line for which you don't want an equation no. – prettygully May 6 '11 at 1:44
• You could also see this question: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/13396/… – Ryan Reich May 6 '11 at 2:04
• @prettygully: if the number of lines is even, then \notag (or \nonumber) won't vertically center the tag. – Gonzalo Medina May 6 '11 at 2:06
• @prettygully: I think you should also write your comment as an answer. @Gonzalo Medina: sometimes you want the number at the end, rather than centered; I often do so. (While the OP prefers centered, not everyone will.) – Niel de Beaudrap May 6 '11 at 12:17
• Wow this solution is amazing! – Jinhua Wang Apr 16 at 22:09

Use \nonumber to do so:

\begin{align}
a & b \nonumber \\ % no number is shown
c & d \\ % there is a number
e & f \nonumber % no number
\end{align}

• I edited the code to remove syntax problems. – Stefan Kottwitz May 6 '11 at 18:22
• It was just the solution for which I was looking. – Ébe Isaac Oct 5 '16 at 11:07
• What if I only have two lines?.. – Cm7F7Bb Jan 18 '18 at 10:36

you can use the aligned environment from the amsmath package:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}
\begin{gather}
\begin{split}
m &=n \\
&=o \\
&=p \\
&=q
\end{split}\\
\begin{aligned}
a &=b + 1 \\
c &=d \\
e &=f \\
g &=h
\end{aligned}
\end{gather}

\end{document}


this is generally recommended for straightforward expressions rather than embedding a sub-structure within align. see the user's manual for amsmath (amsldoc.pdf on ctan or type texdoc amsmath if you have a tex live installation).

edit: changed equation environment to gather to allow multiple sub-structures, and added an example of split as requested. since single letters on either side of the equals sign will give the illusion that everything is aligned, i lengthened one line to show that the alignments of the two sub-structures are really offset from one another. this result will get two equation numbers; either may be removed by use of \notag, but the positioning will not be optimal. sadly, i don't have a solution for that.

• Mildly ironic that in an answer to a question on alignment, you had an error in your code alignment! A case of misalliance (in tribute to Britain's answer to Tom Lehrer). – Loop Space May 6 '11 at 12:48
• I think this is the right answer, but with the wrong example. To typeset a multi-line equation such as a = b = c = d = e, you should not use anything from the align family, but something like split. Could you perhaps change the example so that it is something like "a = b, c = d, e = f, g = h", so that it is clearly multiple equations that you want to align. This is not just semantics; there might be a difference in the vertical spacing, and you should use the right command for the right purpose. – Jukka Suomela May 6 '11 at 12:59
• This is exactly what I was looking for, something that has the nice symmetric labelling of split but also supports multiple columns like align. – Aditya Sriram Jun 27 at 18:18

I realize this question is now quite old, but I've found wrapping the nested equation/aligned in an environment handy since I want single numbers for multi-line equations quite a bit. One hitch is that LaTeX will add a space to the next line unless you do something about it. Here's an nalign environment that is like align but with one (centered) equation number for all the lines.

\newenvironment{nalign}{
\begin{aligned} }{ \end{aligned}
\ignorespacesafterend
}