Want to know commands (codes) for following formatting tasks

Question

Want to know commands (codes) for following formatting tasks.

1. Degree Centigrade.

2. Subscripts and superscripts like CO2, 14N , (6C13)6H12O6.

3. Greek letters.

4. a portion of text, with special characters like stars, less-than, greater-than etc, that would not considered as a part of command (like nowiki command in wikipedia).

5. Displaying more-than 1 space-bars between 2 letters.

Also want to know, what-type of programming language? Surely it is not Wikicode. Is there any more-detail guidelines to handle this code?

Look how strange things a user has done on this website. Stack Exchange experimentation sandbox A big salute to that user.

Answer 1

There are two ways to do what you want: HTML Entities and MathJax. You can use HTML entities for characters like:

• ° °
• α α
• Α Α (note the capitalization)
• λ λ

etc.

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MathJax is basically a JavaScript implementation of $\LaTeX$ (that's $\LaTeX$ for those who are taking notes), a text formatting language. $\LaTeX$ itself is gigantic, so MathJax aims to implement a limited subset (still quite large) related to mathematics and other technical disciplines like chemistry. Rather than repeat a whole bunch of data presented elsewhere, here are some links:

• MathJax basic tutorial and quick reference from the Math.SE meta site.
• How can I format math/chemistry expressions here? from the Chemistry.SE meta site.
• An online $\LaTeX$ Equation Editor

Finally, one quick hint that'll help you learn - if you come across something formatted in $\LaTeX$ on a Stack Exchange site (and possibly elsewhere online where they're using MathJax), just right-click on it and select Show Math As → TeX Commands and a popup will open showing the commands used, instead of having to edit the question/answer to see the source. Please also note you cannot use HTML Entities in MathJax, but there are symbols/commands for everything you'll need already built-in.

There are many $\LaTeX$/MathJax resources online, so if you get stuck, just Google.

Answer 2

I've found following things useful.

1. As a general-purpose, rapid, short command for subscript and superscript:

<sub>subscript</sub> and <sup>superscript</sup> in the edit field; gives rise to respectively _subscript and ^superscript .

So; for example;

• to write Cl₂ ; type Cl<sub>2</sub> .

• To write 2³ ; type 2<sup>3</sup>

• To write ₆C¹² or ¹²₆C ; respectively type <sub>6</sub>C<sup>12</sup> or <sup>12</sup><sub>6</sub>C.

• To write ¹²C₆H₁₂O₆ or ¹³C^*₆H₁₂O₆, respectively; type <sup>12</sup>C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>12</sub>O<sub>6</sub> or <sup>13</sup>C<sup>*</sup><sub>6</sub>H<sub>12</sub>O<sub>6</sub>.

Source and Courtesy: User @Terdon.

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2. To type something that will not be treated as command:

there are 2 ways:

• 2. A. 4-successive space bars before the text.

But that adds a horizontal scroll-bar.

• 2. B. Quoting the text by covering it inside 2 backtick marks. This could be done inside sentence;

Source: seen while trying to understand the tools at visual edit toolbar.

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• P.S. At help page there is an article about correct formatting. Beginners need to go through it. I didn't knew about it and I took many days to search it out.

• There is also a page on comment-formatting