I want e.g. \bigtriangleup as a subscript in math mode, but I do not want it as the subscript of any preceding symbol as | as in |_{\bigtriangleup}. I tried with _{\bigtriangleup} which does not work. Does anyone know a solution?
[Tex/LaTex] Subscript without text in math mode
math-modesubscripts
Related Solutions
What you have tried is the right way. You can simplify it slightly and play with other fonts:
$$ W_\textrm{total} = \sum_i W_i $$
To make it prettier I'd suggest to think about the use of variables and indices in your work. For example, you could reserve W (without index) for the total which is the sum of w_i (lowercase w). This way you can avoid long subscripts.
Duplicate the definition of \textsuperscript:
\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\DeclareRobustCommand{\textsupsub}[2]{{%
\m@th\ensuremath{%
^{\mbox{\fontsize\sf@size\z@#1}}%
_{\mbox{\fontsize\sf@size\z@#2}}%
}%
}}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
X\textsupsub{ab}{c}X\textsupsub{c}{ab}X
\end{document}
Add \strut to the second argument if you prefer.
Best Answer
You may also try with
~_{\bigtriangleup}or with\phantom{text}_{\bigtriangleup}. In the second case the width oftextdetermines how much blank space will be left before the subscript.