# How can I remove space after \right?

Why is it that after \right), the . placed after it is spaced. It looks disturbing. For example:

$$\left(x+y=z\right).$$ There exists an automatic slight space between ) and . that I would like to get rid of if possible? EDIT: Here is a better example,

\begin{aligned} 4x+y-z =& \left( \int_3^7 dr+ \right. \\ & \left. y+x\mathcal{M} \right). \end{aligned}


What has been discussed in the comments, is to define \usepackage{mleftright} though without an application, things are still a little difficult to understand.

• One can manually remove math space with \!, or if one needs a finer measure, \mkern-#mu, where # is replaced with a decimal value. Welcome to the site. – Steven B. Segletes Aug 13 '15 at 11:05
• Maybe \mkern-\nulldelimiterspace is also useful to you. – 1010011010 Aug 13 '15 at 11:07
• That's because \left(...\right) becomes inner atom, which is different from plain (...) with respect to spacing around it. See this question for more detail. – Merzong Aug 13 '15 at 11:11
• @Merzong I have read the best answer there but I do not seem to understand how it applies. Does he mean that one should define a new command after listing the packages and then insert \mathopen{} and \mathclose{} where necessary? Or without defining he commands, directly use \mathopen{} and \mathclose{}? In either ways, it did not work for me. – Beyond-formulas Aug 13 '15 at 11:31
• If you don't want the spaces that can come before \left<fence> and after \right<fence>, load the mleftright package and use \mleft and \mright instead of \left and \right. Or, if you are certain you never want those spaces, load the mleftright package and issue the instruction \mleftright: That way, \left and \right will behave like \mleft and \mright throughout the document. – Mico Aug 13 '15 at 11:34

Which has extra space as the two \left\right pairs make \mathinner atoms which typically get \thinmuskip space around them (the same space as \, which is 1.7pt here) and additional \nulldelimiterspace (1.2pt here) from the two invisible delimiters \right. on the first line and \left. on the second.

However far more disturbing than this white space is the mis-matched size of the ().

If you use fixed size delimiters all these problems go, the brackets are the same size, and there are no null delimiters or mathinner groups creating unwanted horizontal space. I also brought the + on to the next line. If you do want it at the end of the first line it should be marked up as +{} so that it keeps its infix spacing, aligned only automatically supports the convention where binary operators start the continuation line as used below.

(The remaining white space between the ) and . is not white space added by TeX it is white space within the font's glyph for the ) character.


\begin{aligned}
4x+y-z =& \Bigl( \int_3^7 dr  \\
& + y+x\mathcal{M} \Bigr).
\end{aligned}

• @Beyond-formulas: See also the manual of the mathtools package, end of subsection 3.6.1 (pp. 28–29), – GuM Nov 7 '16 at 11:45