Superscript and Subscript

As a teacher of Introduction to Computers I often find people that can use their word processor quite well but may not know how to superscript something that should be printed below the regular typing line or how to superscript something above the regular typing line. Even here in this text if you type H2O for the formula for water the 2 should be subscript.

If you are using Microsoft Office Word 2007 (TM) you woul highlight the 2 and then select "Font" from the Home Tab (This is the section with the word "Font", not the Font style and Pitch Size). This would give you a variety of Fonts, Font Style, Font Size, Font Color, Underline Style, and Effects: Strikethrough, Double Strikethrough, Superscript, Subscript, Shadow, Outline, Emboss, Engrave, Small Caps, All Caps, and Hidden. There is also a tab you can select for Character Spacing, where you can select Scale Spacing Position and Kerning. Here we are mainly concerned with subscript of the 2. The 2 is located between the H and O and tells us that there are two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen in each water molecule. Highlighting only the 2 and then selecting Font and then selecting subscript will produce the 2 lower than the regular line of print. This works out fine, but sometimes if you subscript something that is at the end of regular type you can forget to change back to non-subscript. This could happen if you were just showing H2 with the 2 subscripted. This would indicate a molecule of hydrogen gas, but once you have the 2 subscripted you must then change back to normal.

Note: There are two X's (located after the Bold, Italic etc.) which can be used to superscript and subscript which are quicker methods, but will not give you as many options.

The use of superscript is often used for "powers" for example if you wanted to represent 5 to the 3 power, you would type the 5 and then the 3, then highlight the 3 and then select font from the home tab and then select superscript. Remember to change back after the superscript of the 3. You will need to use superscript and subscript for other things in a document also. It might be used when you need to represent degrees, trade marks, trade names, etc.

Once you have produced a formula in a document you could then copy and paste it if you should need to put it in your document many other times. Because the superscript and subscript character may appear very small you may also want to increase the font size at the same time that you superscript or subscript. You should also take the time to experiment with the other functions like strike through etc. that are located in this same section.

Effects like strike through and double strikethrough are often used when editing a document.. You may have had instructors do this in the past by marking on your printout, but now it can be done with a few clicks of a mouse.

When you don't use superscript and subscript when you should it shows that you either don't know about this function or simply have elected not to use it in your documents. Since I work with a lot of students taking medical career courses at the college level, they should use the proper format.