# Wrapping long numerator

I have a long square root equation that walks off the edge of the page. See the following picture where the end of the equation is cutoff.

$S=\sqrt{\frac{306.250+240.250+156.250+110.250+90.250+56.250+30.250+30.250+30.250+56.250+132.250+156.250+380.250+756.250}{14-1}}$


I would like to collapse it so that all of the values can be visible. I understand I can decrease the font size, or mathematically decrease the size of the square root, but I would like a solution that keeps the same font size, and keeps all of the values together under the square root.

How can I move half of the values to the next line so that they remain under the square root? See the following illustration as an example.

 --------------------
| x + x + x + x + ...
| x + x + x + x + x
| ------------------
\|         y


I've tried the obvious \newline, however, it does not pair well with \sqrt. The following is the result of that.

I am a LaTeX newbie. Does anyone know how I can achieve this? Thanks.

• Is it splitfrac/splitdfrac from mathtools you look for? Oct 2, 2022 at 20:15
• @mickep Yep. Appreciate the answer
– Jaan
Oct 2, 2022 at 20:22
• @Jaan Try to think to your future readers... I am not sure that the output wanted is the better one to understand your formula. Oct 2, 2022 at 21:07

## 1 Answer

As @mickep has already suggested in a comment, the \splitfrac and \splitdfrac macros (provided by the mathtools package, a superset of the amsmath package) are your friends. The d in \splitdfrac indicates that its arguments will be processed in display-style math mode.

As the following example code shows, one can split a long numerator (or denominator) term into 3 or more parts by nesting the macros.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathtools} % for \splitfrac and \splitdfrac macros

\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
S&=\sqrt{\frac{%
\splitfrac{306.250+240.250+156.250+110.250+90.250+56.250+30.250}%
{+30.250+30.250+56.250+132.250+156.250+380.250+756.250}}%
{14-1}}\\
&=\sqrt{\frac{%
\splitdfrac{\splitdfrac{306.250+240.250+156.250+110.250+90.250}%
{+56.250+30.250+30.250+30.250+56.250}}%
{+132.250+156.250+380.250+756.250}}%
{14-1}}
\end{align*}
\end{document}

• \splitdfrac also increases the vertical separation. So the choice between two and three lines isn't quite so simple. Oct 2, 2022 at 21:11
• @barbarabeeton - Thanks for this addition.
– Mico
Oct 3, 2022 at 6:43