How do you make big parentheses in LaTeX?

Written by Admin in Math symbols

We use brackets and parentheses frequently while writing a LaTeX documents related to Physics and Mathematics. In this tutorial I will explain in detail how we can write different kind parentheses and brackets in LaTeX.

Writing Big bracket in a correct way

To understand the correct way of writing brackets, here is an example.

Wrong Way: F=k(\frac{q_1q_2}{r^2}) which yields:

\(F=k(\frac{q_1q_2}{r^2}) \)

As we can see in the equation round brackets are small w.r.t to the term insid.

Correct Way: F=k \left( \frac{q_1q_2}{r^2} \right) which yields:

\(F=k\left(\frac{q_1q_2}{r^2}\right) \) 

To write brackets in LaTeX that depend on its content, we have to use two essential commands \left and \right. To open the bracket, use “ \left(” and to close the bracket, use “ \right)”

Bracket with in a bracket

We can write brackets within a brackets as \left[ \left( Terms \right ) \right], lets write an equation using this method of nested brackets:

\(y =\left[2x+\left(\cfrac{1}{x}+ \cfrac{1}{x^2} + \cfrac{1}{x^3} +\cdots+ \cfrac{1}{x^n} \right) \right]\)

which obtained using the following LaTeX code:

% Bracket with in a bracket
\documentclass{article}

% Math package
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}

$y =\left[2x+\left(\cfrac{1}{x}+ \cfrac{1}{x^2} + \cfrac{1}{x^3} +\cdots+ \cfrac{1}{x^n}  \right)  \right]$

\end{document}

Controlling size of different brackets

If we want to change the size of the brackets, instead of left and right commands, we can use the following:

DescriptionLaTeX commandOutput
Using right and left commands\left( y=ax \right)\( \left( y=ax \right) \)
Using big command\big( y=ax \big ) \( \big ( y=ax \big ) \)
Using bigg command\bigg( y=ax \bigg ) \( \bigg ( y=ax \bigg ) \)
Using Bigg command \Bigg( y=ax \Bigg ) \( \Bigg ( y=ax \Bigg ) \)

Big square brackets in LaTeX

This method is true for all the brackets, either square bracket or curly bracket.

DescriptionLaTeX commandOutput
Using right and left commands\left[ y=ax \right]\( \left [ y=ax \right ] \)
Using big command\big [ y=ax \big ] \( \big [ y=ax \big ] \)
Using bigg command\bigg [ y=ax \bigg ] \( \bigg [ y=ax \bigg ] \)
Using Bigg command \Bigg [ y=ax \Bigg ] \( \Bigg [ y=ax \Bigg ] \)
Big square brackets in LaTeX

Big curly brackets in LaTeX

For curly brackets, we use the previous commands together with \{ or \} as shown in the table below:

DescriptionLaTeX commandOutput
Using right and left commands\left\{ y=ax \right\}\( \left \{ y=ax \right \} \)
Using big command\big \{ y=ax \big \} \( \big \{ y=ax \big \} \)
Using bigg command\bigg \{ y=ax \bigg \} \( \bigg \{ y=ax \bigg \} \)
Using Bigg command \Bigg \{ y=ax \Bigg \} \( \Bigg \{ y=ax \Bigg \} \)
Big curly brackets in LaTeX

Conclusion

In this short post, we presented different commands to typeset big parentheses and brackets (square as well as curly ones) in LaTeX.

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