Centering a text properly

Question

I want to center a set with contains words as follows

{

x in A : x is suppose to be centered}.

I tried the following:  
$$\{x\in A : x is suppose to be centered}$$

which outputs {x in A : xissupposetobecentered}. All of the letters are smashed together, which is something I don't want. How can I fix this?

Please give us some clues, are you using plain Tex or context or latex? — David Carlisle, May 23 '14 at 21:56
\usepackage{amsmath} \[ \{x \in A : x \text{ is supposed to be centered} \} \] — Gonzalo Medina, May 23 '14 at 21:56
You are not supposed to write words inside dollars. A sequence of chars is seen by tex as a product of single-char-named variables, and spaces are ignored. So $Hello$ is indeed the product of $H$, $o$, $l$, $l$, and $o$. This explains the awkward spacing. To write words inside a math environment use \text{} (from amstext package). — JLDiaz, May 23 '14 at 22:31
@JLDiaz perhaps better to directly recommend loading amsmath which internally loads amstext and offers other useful features? — Gonzalo Medina, May 23 '14 at 22:44
@GonzaloMedina Right. Unfortunately comments cannot be edited. — JLDiaz, May 23 '14 at 23:00

zeroset · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-23 21:56:01Z

1

You could use the \text command like this:

\[ \{x\in A : x \text{ is suppose to be centered} \} \]

answered May 23 '14 at 21:56

zeroset

536 bronze badges

Please, don't suggest $$...$$ for LaTeX documents; use \[...\] instead. Also, braces need to be escaped: \{ and \} and there's a space missing between the x and the text. – Gonzalo Medina May 23 '14 at 21:57
Thanks, changed it. Could you tell me the difference between $$ and [ ? – zeroset May 23 '14 at 22:01
$$...$$ is a TeX command which might produce undesired results under certain circumstances in LaTeX. See tex.stackexchange.com/q/503/3954. – Gonzalo Medina May 23 '14 at 22:02
Welcome to the site. – Steven B. Segletes May 24 '14 at 2:09

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