Participant

Question

How to set up subscript and superscript to the same word

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
April 18, 2011
5 replies
52857 views

Hi, everyone. I use Adobe Illustrator CS4 in a MAC. I want to establish a chemical formula MO3- with Illustrator. It seems that I can only first type NO3, and then set 3 as subscript, afterwards I input -, and set it as superscript. But in this case 3 and – are not consistent in the horizontal position.

So I am wondering how to set up subscript and superscript to the same word at the same time? Thank you very much.

This topic has been closed for replies.

H

hys3o3Author

Participant

I do not think it is allowed to set kerning to a negative value in Adobe Illustrator CS4 (used in MAC). So far from our discussion I think the best way is to set - and 3 in the same y axis. Hope someone can find something better. Thank you.

Steve Fairbairn

Inspiring

Read my first posting.

I said track –500, not kern.

tromboniator

Community Expert

Steve,

I said kern, but I figured out the sequence to make tracking work.

hys3o3,

To use kerning, don't select the characters, but put the cursor between the letters you want to adjust, then set the kerning value.

Peter

M

Mike Sargent

Participating Frequently

I would explore Illustrator's Warichu options.

See mordy Golding's tutorial at http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com/2007/12/ask-mordy-movie-credits-text.html.

tromboniator

Community Expert

Excellent, Mike, thank you.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

So it was both up/down and back/forth as mentioned in post #4.

H

hys3o3Author

Participant

Please see this picture:http://hi.baidu.com/hys850415/album/item/c09b1ebfc091459637d3ca1a.html#

Have you ever used equation editor in Microsoft Word with which it is easy to creat subscript and superscript in the same time? The picture is what I creat NO3- with equation editor. Actually, I want to use Illustrator to create the effect that superscript and subscript are in the same vertical placement, not 3 first and - behind. If Illustrator CS4 has no such function, the only thing I can do is to type in NO3 first (make 3 subscript) and then type - (make it superscript) . Afterwards, try to adjust the placemnt of - to make it similar to be in the same vertical axis with 3. But I still hope Illstator CS4 has had some tools to create subscript and subscript to the same word at one time for users.

Steve Fairbairn

Inspiring

Seems to be not too much trouble.

With type as 12 pt, here are the settings:

NO = normal

3 = Subscript, track –500, baseline shift 1 pt (optional)

_ = Superscript, baseline shift 4 pt.

But I've never seen formulae set up like that. What does the overscore over the 3 mean? Long time since I did chemistry, maybe they've changed something.

tromboniator

Community Expert

That's a negative sign, for the valence, or electronegativity, or what ever term they're using these days. The charge of the ion is -1. I couldn't get the tracking to do what I wanted, so I got it with kerning.

Edit: According to Wikipedia, it's formal charge, not a term that was in use when I was studying chemistry. Sounds more like a legal term, to me.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

hys3o3,

You may cheat and apply Character>Baseline Shift to individual characters (to move up/down).

tromboniator

Community Expert

Jacob,

(hys3o3, correct me if I'm wrong) I think that the problem is that the 3 and the - should have the same vertical axis. I was about to go to bed, and haven't worked this out yet.

Peter

Edit: I don't think you can do this in a single text object, but I'd be happy to be overruled.

tromboniator

Community Expert

I will correct myself: set the cursor between the 3 and the -, then in the Character Panel set the kerning to something like -400, and you should get what you want.

Peter

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