# How can I decrease my formula size?

I have a problem in size of formulas. I used

\small{some formula}


and

\begin{small} some formula \end{small}


but, non of them works.

• For future questions, a minimal working example (\documentclass through \end{document}, with a too-large formula) would be really helpful. – Teepeemm Dec 3 '16 at 17:13
• Note that \small isn't a command that takes an argument, and it's not a LaTeX environment either. Writing {\small $some formula$} should work just fine. – Mico Dec 3 '16 at 17:24
• Welcome to TeX.SX! I recommend not to reduce font size. If the formula is too large to fit the text width, then it should be structured in some way. This will also make it easier to understand. How to structure it depends on the particular formula, so we can only propose a solution if you provide the formula. – gernot Dec 3 '16 at 17:34
• Welcome! Can you please be some more explicit about what formula you want to make smaller and why? – egreg Dec 3 '16 at 17:38

This works just fine.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
$f = \frac{orm}{ula}$

{\small$f = \frac{orm}{ula}$}

{\tiny$f = \frac{orm}{ula}$}
\end{document}


If you want proportional scaling you need to do it manually using \scalebox.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
$f = \frac{orm}{ula}$

$\scalebox{.5}{\displaystyle f = \frac{orm}{ula}}$
\end{document}


You also can use one of the commands in package nccmath , an extension of amsmath, which defines medium sized commands and environments (ca 80 % ofd \displaystyle): \medmath, \medop, \medint,\mfrac, \mbinom and the medsize and mmatrix environments. Compare:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage [fleqn]{amsmath}%
\usepackage{nccmath}

\DeclareMathOperator{\ath}{argth}
\newcommand{\dint}{\displaystyle\int}
\newcommand{\mint}{\medint\int}
\renewcommand{\d}{{\rm d}\,}

%
\begin{document}

\begin{align*}
& \texttt{\textbackslash displaystyle:} & & \int\frac{\mathrm d\mkern1mu x}{1-x²} =\ath x = \frac12\ln\Bigl(\frac{1 + x}{1-x}\Bigr) \\
& \texttt{\phantom{\textbackslash}medsize:} & & \medmath{\int\frac{\mathrm d\mkern1mu x}{1-x²} =\ath x = \frac12\ln\Bigl(\frac{1 + x}{1-x}\Bigr)} \\%
& \texttt{\textbackslash textstyle: }
& & \textstyle \int\frac{\mathrm d\mkern1mu x}{1-x²} =\ath x = \frac12\ln\bigl(\frac{1 + x}{1-x}\bigr)
\end{align*}%

\end{document}