# Increase default size of equations to allow subscripts to be seen easily without zoom

Between fractions and subscripts using MathJax characters can get really small to the point of not being legible under the current default zoom conditions. From here it was recommended that I see if others on the EE SE are interested in changing the default size/zoom of equations here.

Here's an example text of a dual subscript in a fraction that makes it really hard to read. Even the "t"s in it are difficult to discern. Your votes will determine if I just need new glasses.

$$\frac{V_{t_p}}{V_{t_n}}$$

Here's the quote from the other Meta stack site stating a way to change the default size:

Or, if sufficiently many EE users think that the font size in formulas should be increased, that can be done site-wide, by changing MathJax configuration. E.g., the configuring script could include MathJax.Hub.Config({ "HTML-CSS": {scale: 120} });. This is something you can bring up for discussion on meta.EE.

EDIT: No one had come up with a good answer/solution to the original question on the other SE so this question was originally a feature request. I've changed it to be a support topic as no new feature is needed. W5VO answered this question perfectly in his comment.

• Since MathJax contains a decent set of LaTeX commands, you can use \large or \Large to increase the size of a line. This is useful if you are "going down the rabbit hole" with subscripts. See here: forkosh.com/latex/ltx-178.html – W5VO Jun 5 '14 at 18:39
• @W5VO Ah, that's exactly what I was looking for from the original question! – horta Jun 5 '14 at 18:47
• Actually I think the MathJax font should be slightly $\text{smaller}$ to fit with the regular font. – jippie Jun 5 '14 at 18:57
• Most browsers have a "zoom" function built-in, usually control-plus and control-minus. That's the nice thing about HTML -- you can adjust the "view" to meet your requirements without forcing everyone else to conform. – Dave Tweed Jun 5 '14 at 23:11
• @DaveTweed Yeah, but Olin didn't seem to like that, which is why I posted this question originally: electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/113201/… – horta Jun 6 '14 at 4:16

If you know you're going to need a lot of subscripts, you can dictate a font size in your MathJax equation. From your post, you had an equation with two levels of subscripts, which is pretty much illegible at normal settings:

$$\frac{V_{t_p}}{V_{t_n}}$$

However, you can add size modification tags to your equation to help make it legible. For example, I added the \Large tag and it was much easier to read.

$$\Large\frac{V_{t_p}}{V_{t_n}}$$

You can see the before and after effects in the rendered image below:

From this reference, a few modifiers that will increase the size are:

• \large
• \Large
• \LARGE
• \huge
• \Huge

You can set the scaling for yourself using MathJax's contextual menu. Right click (or control click on a Mac) any typeset equation and select the "Math Settings" submenu, then the "Scale All Math" item. You can enter a scaling factor that will be used for all equations on the site where you set it. It is saved in a cookie, so should continue to be used for subsequent visits until you toss your cookies (or a year passes, which is the expiration time for the cookie). So if you don't like the default scaling, you can chance it, and can make it either larger or smaller.

Note that the readability of the text is very much dependent on the browser and OS that you are using, the rendering engine used by the browser or OS, and settings controlling antialiasing of the fonts. For instance, your example with the fraction and double-subscripted V's is very readable for me. I understand that Windows (particularly older versions) produce very poor results for small fonts in general.

Since the math displays nicely for me, I would find an enlarged scaling factor a distraction (since the math would not match the surrounding font well). So I would vote not to make such a global change.

• The original question had an answer recommending this method. The issue there is producer control vs user control: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/233651/… The question has been changed to a support question rather than a feature request. – horta Jun 6 '14 at 19:31
• @horta, yes, I saw that later. I think it is a mistake to try to adjust the size for others because it is bad for you. You don't know the other user's setup or needs. Best to let them handle that for themselves. I always find it annoying when web page authors override the default sizes and font that I've carefully set up to work for me, and I end up with tiny fonts or some other bad results because that's what they need on their system that is different from mine. What you see is not necessarily the same as what everyone else sees. – Davide Cervone Jun 6 '14 at 21:46