As to quoting math symbols, we already find nice answers in How to write quotation marks in math environment?
But I have a question to a problem that doesn't show up in the examples in the above article: What's the best way to enclose a single math symbol in double or single quotation marks with proper spacing?
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
``$R$'' or $``R"$ or \textit{``$R$''} or \textit{``R''} \dots
\end{document}
In the first two, the opening double quote is a bit too far from "R" and the closing one is a bit too close. The third and fourth ones are better but you still see asymmetry (the closing quote is a bit too far). Is there a standard solution? What do people do in this situation?
Edit: I ask this question because I very often write things like
In the above equation, ``$R$'' stands for the ratio of . . .
You could argue that a simple $R$
without double quotes is good enough in this example because "R" is italicized, but I often feel the emphasis isn't conspicuous enough.
Edit 2: I corrected my description of the third and fourth examples. At first I thought they look different, but LaRiFaRi has made me realize that they are identical! Sorry for the confusion.
Best Answer
The first two are the same. And so are the last two (both times possibly taking different fonts. But math and text font do not differ here as far as I see). But the last two are having slanted quotation marks. Do you want that? If yes, try italic correction such as
\textit{``\/$R$''}
.Personally, I would go for the very first one. It has the best syntax and does not look too bad. If you use it in just a few cases and you dislike it, you may type
``$R$\kern.3ex''
or alike.In every case, I would recommend a custom command for such things. Like this, you stay absolutely flexible for later changes.