Setting Spacing for Radicals in the Equation Editor

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 29, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

A radical is often referred to as a "square root symbol," when, in fact, it is used for any types of roots (square, cubed, and so on). The Equation Editor allows you to specify a distance between the top of the radical and the top of any characters under the radical. You do this as follows:

Choose Spacing from the Format menu. The Equation Editor displays the Spacing dialog box.
Click on the Radical Gap box (you will need to scroll down some in the list of spacing settings). The Equation Editor changes the Spacing dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Spacing dialog box.

Enter a gap value in points.
Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (941) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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