[OS X TeX] Size of braces and parentheses in split environment

[Axel E. Retif]

On  18 Aug, 2008, at 15:46, Iraj Kalantari wrote:

> Dear Experts,
>
> Having experienced something like this which I did not record at the  
> time, I experimented with Raul's test file.
>
> Oddly (to my inexpert disposition), what causes the discrepancy in  
> the size of the braces are the exponents in the two lines.  An  
> exponent of '4' or a '7' in either line will make the size of the  
> braces larger.

Pending the experts opinion...

Curiously, I get the same sizes in both lines; what changes for me is  
the relative sizes of delimiters when changing from 12pt to 10pt:

Whithout lmodern (that is, with cm-super), I see the change with or  
without \usepackage{exscale,relsize}. With just lmodern the relative  
size of delimiters is the same in 10pt and 12pt; but with  
\usepackage{exscale,relsize} even lmodern makes the change.

Now try other fonts, for example, mathptmx and txfonts (for the  
latter, you have to load it after the AMS packages).

> Is it the font that causes it?

I guess a combinations of the fonts and packages that manage them.


> When should one watch out for this kind of behavior?

Always. Since the days before LaTeX ---now with so many packages  
fonts, even more.

I think it profits to read and re-read Voss' Mathmode:

http://www.ctan.org/get/info/math/voss/mathmode/Mathmode.pdf

Also, I think one should load always fixltx2e and Morten Høgholm's  
mathtools:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/mh/

See the mathtools PDF.


Best,

Axel