James Mussleman | Applications Expert
I was recently putting together some styles for a client and they had the requirement to have the digits after the decimal appear in superscript form. I started to go about it as creating two separate components and just altering the height of the decimal objects. This got me thinking that there may be a better way. As it turns out, there is! At least in my humble opinion there is. We can actually utilize the fraction functionality to accomplish this. The first thing we need to look at though is the fraction functionality within label styles. Fractions are accomplished by providing a code within the component editor. There are three characters that we can specify depending on the desired result:
/ - a slash will provide a vertically stacked fraction with a line separating the numerator and denominator
# - a pound sign will stack the numerator and denominator diagonally and will provide a diagonal line
^ - a carat will stack the text vertically but will not provide a line
In order to use these characters we simply add the desired symbol between our two pieces of text and highlight the numerator, denominator, and stack symbol. Once highlighted, on the format tab of the text component editor, we can select the stack fractions button:
And the result is a fraction:
So with that explained, now onto the superscript and subscript. We simply use the same characters and only include a numerator or denominator. So if we want a spot elevation style that has the decimal digits in superscript, we first insert the elevation with a precision of 1 and the rounding set to truncate. Then we follow that with the elevation again, this time set to our required precision and the output set to right of decimal. Finally we follow that up with a slash. We then highlight the second elevation entity and the slash and select the stacked fractions button:
The result is a spot elevation label with the decimals in a superscript:
If we want a subscript we simply place the desired symbol (typically a carat if we don’t want the line above) prior to the component and perform the same process. If you need to revise the fraction portion, simply select the stacked text object and press the stacked fractions button. It will unstack the fraction and allow you to edit the components.
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