[Tex/LaTex] How to write accents in LaTeX

accents

I need to cite the journal "Sankhyā: The Indian Journal of Statistics" in a paper. I would like to draw the ā character properly (i.e., I'd prefer, if possible, to avoid using some hack, such as \bar or \overline).

Question: How do I properly write ā in LaTeX?

I didn't have luck with Detexify (after several attempts in both in capital and lowercase) nor The Comprehensive LATEX Symbol List (searching the file for "ā" and "india" revealed no hits).

Best Answer

You can write the macron using \=<character>;

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\begin{document}

Sankhy\=a

\end{document}

enter image description here

Just for the record, here's a table I wrote some time ago, containing (I think) all the accents provided by LaTeX (the original names were in Spanish; I used the English names I found on the web, but let me know if there's any mistakes):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[USenglish]{babel}
\usepackage{fourier}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{listings}

\lstset{
basicstyle=\small\ttfamily}

\begin{document}

{
\renewcommand\arraystretch{1.3}
\noindent\begin{tabular}{@{}clcc@{}} 
    \toprule & &
    \multicolumn{2}{c@{}}{Example}\\ 
    \cmidrule(l){3-4}
    Definition &
    \multicolumn{1}{@{}c}{Description} &
    Input &
    Output \\
    \cmidrule(r){1-1}\cmidrule(r){2-2}\cmidrule(l){3-3}\cmidrule(l){4-4}
    \lstinline+\'{<character>}+ & acute accent & \lstinline+\'{a}+ & \'{a}\\
    \lstinline+\`{<character>}+ & grave accent & \lstinline+\`{a}+ & \`{a}\\
    \lstinline+\"{<character>}+ & umlaut or dieresis & \lstinline+\"{u}+ & \"{u}\\
    \lstinline+\c{<character>}+ & cedilla &\lstinline+\c{c}+ & \c{c}\\
    \lstinline+\={<character>}+ & macron & \lstinline+\={a}+ & \={a}\\ 
    \lstinline+\b{<character>}+ & bar under &\lstinline+\b{a}+ & \b{a}\\ 
    \lstinline+\u{<character>}+ & breve accent &\lstinline+\u{a}+ & \u{a}\\ 
    \lstinline+\v{<character>}+ & há\v{c}ek &\lstinline+\v{a}+ & \v{a}\\
    \lstinline+\~{<character>}+ & tilde & \lstinline+\~{n}+ & \~{n}\\
    \lstinline+\^{<character>}+ & circumflex accent & \lstinline+\^{o}+ & \^{o}\\ 
    \lstinline+\.{<character>}+ & dot accent &\lstinline+\.{a}+ & \.{a}\\ 
    \lstinline+\d{<character>}+ & dot-under accent &\lstinline+\d{a}+ & \d{a}\\ 
    \lstinline+\r{<character>}+ & ring &\lstinline+\r{a}+ & \r{a}\\
    \lstinline+\H{<character>}+ & long Hungarian umlaut &\lstinline+\H{a}+ & \H{a}\\
    \lstinline+\k{<character>}+ & ogonek &\lstinline+\k{a}+ & \k{a}\\ 
    \lstinline+\t{<character>}+ & tie-after accent &\lstinline+\t{oo}+ & \t{oo}\\ 
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
  } 

\end{document}

enter image description here

As egreg mentions in his comment, Accents over the "i" deserve special mention: `i , \'i, \^i and \"i produce the desired accent, but \i must be used for the others, for instance \={\i} or \v{\i}.

Of course, some of the accents can be obtained loading the inputenc package and typing them directly from the keyboard.

Thanks to Mico for suggesting the addition of the ogonek.

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