# No italic correction in math mode?

Is it possible to get italic correction work in math mode?

I found that F or C followed by a \forall extremely ugly in TeX/LaTeX, and inserting \/ like F \/ \forall does not help.

Is F \, \forall the recommended solution? Or is it possible to use a mechanism similar to italic correction in text mode?

• There is no italic correction in math mode, since $f$ is not italics. Also, \forall is just a symbol that translates to for all rather than it being an operator that acts on certain operands (left and/or right). So, the spacing is ultimately up to you. – Werner Nov 6 '14 at 1:27
• I don't know if it would help you but you can rotate a capital a upside down with $\rotatebox{180}{A}$. – hkviktor Nov 6 '14 at 2:24
• @hkviktor - How exactly might rotating the letter "A" 180 degrees help with kerning? – Mico Nov 6 '14 at 5:54
• @Werner I understand that \forall is not an operator, but the F touches the \forall that follows, which I found ugly. – Tony Beta Lambda Nov 6 '14 at 10:16
• @TonyBetaLambda I usually write \forall after a comma and a space, the space is usually a normal space \ or a \enskip (half of an \quad) in inline math and a full \quad in display math. E.g., $\forall x \in \mathbb{C}, \enskip \exists \alpha_0 > 1$. – Manuel Nov 6 '14 at 12:02

As mentioned in comments, there is no italic correction in math-mode. There may be fonts which provide a better kerning in this case and of course, you could ask the maintainer of your font to include kerning pairs for C\forall and F\forall.

But actually I would not recommend that as it gets difficult to read if set too close together. I would treat \forall like a real word and therefore write something like $C\ \forall\ x$.


% arara: pdflatex

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
\noindent
$C\forall x$\\
$C\,\forall\,x$\\
$C\mkern4mu\forall\mkern4mu x$\\
$C\ \forall\ x$
\end{document}

• An off-topic: how are these nice figures generated? – Tony Beta Lambda Nov 12 '14 at 14:45
• @TonyBetaLambda I used the package lua-visual-debug for this. – LaRiFaRi Nov 12 '14 at 16:00