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In letters written in the early 20th century, for the German word “bei”, the author commonly uses the abbreviation “ᵇ/”. Currently I typeset as follows:

26.4.17 \textsuperscript{b}/La Selve

The result, however, is an unpleasant space between the superscript “b” and the slash. Of course I could manually adjust space, but I wonder:

Is there a recommended way of typesetting abbreviations like that? Any dedicated package?

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  • 1
    How about creating a command that takes the abbreviation letter as an argument, then puts it in superscript and adds negative kerning and a slash?
    – ienissei
    Dec 16, 2015 at 11:54
  • 1
    Or something a bit more complex using a box to resize and place the letter exactly where you want it, because even though I have not tested the result, I feel like you may want a bigger font size than regular superscript and maybe better vertical positioning too.
    – ienissei
    Dec 16, 2015 at 11:56
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    As for packages, I think the best you can find is a package that wraps all of your commands into a list of abbreviations, but it will not provide for the typography.
    – ienissei
    Dec 16, 2015 at 11:58

2 Answers 2

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5

Never seen such an abbreviation, but it's easy to obtain it:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\bei}{\textsuperscript{b}\kern-.3em}

\begin{document}

Abcdef \bei/La Selve

\end{document}

You could also add the / in the definition of \bei, if you prefer, but it has the disadvantage that a space after \bei would need {}.

Alternatively, in order to be sure you do have a slash after \bei is

\newcommand{\bei}{}% just for safety
\def\bei/{\textsuperscript{b}\kern-.3em/}

and the usage is as before.

enter image description here

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  • are you quite sure there shouldn't be a space between the slash and the word that follows?
    – barbara beeton
    Dec 16, 2015 at 19:30
  • @barbarabeeton I took the input from the OP
    – egreg
    Dec 16, 2015 at 20:35
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I'm not familiar with this specific abbreviation. For what I understand from your question, I'd suggest the microtype package (needs LuaLaTex).

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage{xspace}

\newcommand*{\mybei}{\textls[-190]{\emph{\textsuperscript{b}}/}\xspace}
\newcommand*{\mybeis}{\textls[-300]{\textsuperscript{b}/}\xspace}
\newcommand*{\mybeit}{\textls[-190]{\textsuperscript{b}/}\xspace}

\begin{document}
    There is a \mybei here. Can I use the abbreviation \mybeit to say \mybeis uns in Deutschland?
\end{document}

The kerning between "b" and "/" can be adapted by \textls.

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