# About big parenthesis larger than Bigg

Do any one know how to type a very big parenthesis in LaTeX. Since the formula is very big, I used multline environment, in one line, there are many pair of parenthesis by using \left and \right which make them already very big. Between lines, I need some parenthesis bigger than the one given by \Bigg. My intention is to show the following big formula in multline environment:

$$\frac{ e^{-\frac{t \lambda +4}{4 \lambda \nu }} \left( e^{\frac{t}{4 \nu }} \left( 4 \sqrt{\pi } \sqrt{\nu }+1 \right) \nu \Phi \left( \frac{t-\frac{2}{\lambda }}{\sqrt{2} \sqrt{t \nu }} \right) \lambda^3 -e^{\frac{t \lambda +8}{4 \lambda \nu }} \left( 4 \sqrt{\pi } \sqrt{\nu }-1 \right) \nu \left( \Phi \left( \frac{t+\frac{2}{\lambda }}{\sqrt{2} \sqrt{t \nu }} \right) -1 \right) \lambda^3 +e^{\frac{1}{\lambda \nu }} \left( 4 \sqrt{\pi } \lambda^3 \nu^{3/2} \left( 2 \Phi \left( \frac{1}{\sqrt{2} \lambda \sqrt{t \nu }} \right) -1 \right) -e^{\frac{t}{4 \nu }} \left( \left( \lambda \left( 4 \sqrt{\pi } \sqrt{\nu }-1 \right) \nu +2 \right) \lambda^2+2 (\lambda \nu -2) \Phi \left( \frac{\sqrt{\frac{t}{\nu }}}{\sqrt{2}} \right) \lambda^2-2 \right) \right) \right) }{4 \lambda }$$


The ams parenthesis of specific size are typeset by using \left and \right and putting in an invisible "thing" of a certain height to ensure that they are big enough. Mimicking that, you could do: \left(\rule{0cm}{2cm}\right. to get a left parenthesis of 2cm height. Note that the AMS command also adds a little horizontal space which you might need to put in as well. If you do this often, you could easily define new sizes:

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\vast}{\bBigg@{4}}
\newcommand{\Vast}{\bBigg@{5}}
\makeatother


$\Vast( \frac{\prod_0^\infty k}{\sum_0^\infty n} \Vast)$


produces:

I recommend also taking a look at Vertically asymmetric size variation for parentheses about vertically centring parentheses.

(Note I've assumed that you're using amsmath since you tag it with amsmath and the commands \big and so forth are ones that amsmath produces. If you're using a different package to get these commands, then this solution won't work.)

• Thank you Andrew. It is very useful. It solves my problem. :-) – Anand Dec 9 '10 at 10:30
• very useful thanks a lot you are an angel !! – user11861 Feb 18 '12 at 4:30
• Great, but your code should also define \vastl, \vastm, and \vastr commands that work along the lines of \bigl, \bigm, and \bigr, right? Also \Vastl, \Vastm, and \Vastr? – MSC Dec 7 '13 at 0:49
• \left(\rule{0cm}{2cm}\right. Worked for me! IN my case I used the curly bracket instead of the parenthesis. I even taylored the hight parameter, by trial and error, of the \rule to size the bracket just right. In my case I used em instead of cm so that it SHOULD self re-size if the font is ever changed. vis. \left.\rule{0em}{2.5em}\right\} – TommyK Apr 23 '15 at 19:06

I had the same requirement as Anand and came across this page. The solution recommended by Loop Space works flawlessly. However, when the equations are already too complex, typing \left(\rule{0cm}{2cm}\right. inside the math environment adds to the clutter. Therefore, I declared the following commands in my preamble and call them with the required height where it is necessary.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[cmex10]{amsmath}

\newcommand{\prb}[1]{\mathop{\mathrm{Pr}}\nolimits \left\{ {#1} \right\} }

\newcommand{\cstpl}[1]{\left(\rule{0 cm}{#1}\right.}
\newcommand{\cstpr}[1]{\left.\rule{0 cm}{#1}\right)}

\begin{document}

\begin{align*}
& Q = \cstpl{0.8cm} \prb{\frac{A^2_i}{B+C^3_i} \ge D } - \\
& \prb{\frac{E^2_j}{F^2_k+G} \ge H } \frac{ L }{ M } \cstpr{0.8cm}.
\end{align*}

\end{document}

• Welcome to TeX.SX! The cmex10 option to amsmath is for compatibility with very old TeX distributions and should not be used with newer (later than 1998 or so) ones. – egreg Oct 7 '17 at 20:34