Vector arrows that cross tall characters (b, d, h, k)

Question

The names of my vectors often have ascenders, e.g. \vec b and \vec d. By themselves, they look fine, but I have two issues with them:

• They make the letters so tall that they cause whitespace above their line;
• They look ugly next to other vectors, e.g. \vec a;

My goal is to lower the vector arrow so that it crosses the ascender when it's there, sort of how this thread raises all vector arrows to the tallest height (which is the inverse of what I want). It'd look similar to bar characters (e.g. this and this), except with a straight vector arrow, of course. If possible, it should be compatible with shifting the arrow leftward as demonstrated here.

Answer 1

You could do something like this, but I am unsure whether this looks really nice:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\myvec}[2][0mu]{%
    \smash{\mkern4mu\mkern#1\relax\vec{}}%
    \mkern-4mu\mkern-#1\relax#2%
}

\begin{document}

$\myvec{a} \cdot \myvec[-1mu]{b} \cdot \myvec[6mu]{k} x$

\end{document}