# How do I represent a mathematical function in LaTeX? [duplicate]

I want to write something like

F : X ----> Y

x |---> 2x

in LaTeX where the

x |---> 2x

appears directly below

F : X ----> Y

Any suggestions on how to do this?

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• Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format. – karlkoeller Jul 3 '16 at 17:49
• @SAM English is not my native language, hope now it's better. – karlkoeller Jul 3 '16 at 18:10

This should be the right approach:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
F\colon & X \rightarrow Y \\
& x \mapsto 2x
\end{align*}
\end{document}


If you prefer a different alignment move the &:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
F\colon X & \rightarrow Y \\
x & \mapsto 2x
\end{align*}
\end{document}


If you also prefer longer arrows, use \longrightarrow and \longmapsto:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
F\colon X & \longrightarrow Y \\
x & \longmapsto 2x
\end{align*}
\end{document}


• You can also substitute \rightarrow with \to. – karlkoeller Jul 3 '16 at 18:03

I am not sure what you mean by |, but for aligning equations, the align-environment is often used. Here it will align at the arrow since I put & right in front of the \Rightarrow. This is explained further in the documentation.

Note that you can always locate the documentation using the command-line/terminal by writing texdoc amsmath, and that works for any package. The documentation is also available at http://ctan.org/pkg/amsmath

It might sound tedious to look up the documentation for various small problems/features, but the package documentations tend to be well-written and easy to browse. Also, it will at the same time help you to understand how LaTeX works.

Output

Code

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\begin{document}
\begin{align}
F: x &\Rightarrow Y\\
x &\Rightarrow 2x
\end{align}
\end{document}