Help with horizontal alignment

Can you help me move the text closer to the left like:

\documentclass[11pt,fleqn]{book}

\usepackage{amsmath,amsfonts,amssymb,amsthm}

\begin{document}
\noindent
where
\begin{flalign*}
&\Delta f_{res} & - & \mbox{\emph{lock time in microseconds}}&&\\
&\mathcal{L} & - & \mbox{\emph{is the loop bandwidth in kHz, and}}&&\\
&f_{m} & - & \frac{Frequency~Tolerance}{Frequency~Jump}&&
\end{flalign*}
\end{document}


Thanks,

• a couple of suggestions: those elements on the right-hand side aren't negative, so you really don't want a minus sign. also, \text{...} is usually better than \mbox, and the words in the fraction aren't math variables multiplied together. put these together, and get this for the last line: &f{m} && \text{--- } \frac{\text{Frequency Tolerance}}{\text{Frequency Jump}}. (i'm not where i can experiment right now to figure out what's best to close up the space.) – barbara beeton Feb 5 '16 at 16:46

Here's a possibility that doesn't abuse flalign:

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{amsmath,siunitx}

\begin{document}

\noindent
where
$\makebox[\displaywidth][l]{\displaystyle \begin{array}{@{} l l @{}} \Delta f_{\mathrm{res}} & \mbox{---\quad \emph{lock time in microseconds,}} \\ \mathcal{L} & \mbox{---\quad \emph{loop bandwidth in \si{kHz}, and}} \\ f_{m} & \mbox{---\quad}\dfrac{\text{\emph{Frequency Tolerance}}} {\text{\emph{Frequency Jump}}.} \end{array} }$

\end{document}


\documentclass[11pt,fleqn]{book}

\usepackage{amsmath,amsfonts,amssymb,amsthm}

\begin{document}
\noindent
where
\begin{flalign*}
&\Delta f_{res} & \hspace{-1.6cm} - & \mbox{\emph{lock time in microseconds}}&&\\
&\mathcal{L} & \hspace{-2.1cm} - & \mbox{\emph{is the loop bandwidth in kHz, and}}&&\\
&f_{m} & \hspace{-2cm} - & \frac{Frequency~Tolerance}{Frequency~Jump}&&
\end{flalign*}
\end{document}


• still looks like minus signs making the right-hand sides negative. see my comment on the question. – barbara beeton Feb 5 '16 at 16:49
• @barbarabeeton, I am trying to get bascially a dash - to distinguish the variables (on the left hand side), to its defintions (on the right hand side). Thanks. – Joe Feb 5 '16 at 16:52
• @Joe -- see my comment on the question. \text{--- } is what you want, i think. (that's an em-dash, longer than a minus sign, and i think that a space after it helps distinguish it from a minus, which, if in this context, would be a unary minus with no space.) – barbara beeton Feb 5 '16 at 16:57

\documentclass[11pt,fleqn]{book}

\usepackage{amsmath,amsfonts,amssymb,amsthm}

\begin{document}
\noindent
where
\begin{flalign*}
&\Delta f_{res} & \hspace{-1.6cm}{:~}  & \mbox{\emph{lock time in microseconds}}&&\\
&\mathcal{L} & \hspace{-2.1cm}{:~}  &  \mbox{\emph{is the loop bandwidth in kHz, and}}&&\\
&f_{m} & \hspace{-2cm}{:~}  & \frac{Frequency~Tolerance}{Frequency~Jump}&&
\end{flalign*}
\end{document}


• Please, don't add an answer that's simply a modification of your previous one; it's better to edit the other. – egreg Feb 5 '16 at 17:35
• okay! got it... – user24094 Feb 5 '16 at 17:41

I would do this on the following way:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amsthm}

\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}%for show page layout

\begin{document}
\noindent
where\\
$\begin{array}{rl} \Delta f_{res}: & \textit{lock time in microseconds} \\ \mathcal{L}: & \textit{loop bandwidth in kHz, and} \\ f_{m}: & \dfrac{\textit{frequency tolerance}}{\textit{frequency jump}} \end{array}$

\end{document}


Use of minis sign as separator between variables and its meaning can become ambiguous, so I recommend to use :.

You could use a left-aligned tabular environment to achieve your objective. (The line along the left-hand edge of the following screenshot is there to illustrate the edge of the textblock.)

Incidentally, I don't think it's really necessary to render the explanatory text snippets in italics. To render the material in the upright text font, simply remove the \em instruction in the code below, and replace \textit with \textrm.

\documentclass[11pt,fleqn]{book}
\usepackage{amsmath,array}
\usepackage{showframe}
\newcolumntype{L}{>{$}l<{$} }
\begin{document}
\noindent \dots

\noindent where\\[1ex]
\noindent
f_{m}          & $\dfrac{\textit{Frequency Tolerance}}{\textit{Frequency Jump}}$\\
`