

Combine superscript and subscript numbers to fake a fraction symbol.įind the super- and subscript icons on the Home ribbon to set the character placement.To set a fraction so that it looks like a character, set the 4 as a superscript and the 9 as a subscript (using the icons on the Home ribbon).

Through a combination of super- and subscript with a slash, it is possible to fake your own fraction ligature. If creating a special character from scratch isn’t an option (e.g., this text is being typeset for the web) then you might choose to make all fractions plain old in-line numbers separated by a solidus/slash. Option 3: Brute Force Equations on Your Own To open this ribbon, click the Fraction icon on the Equations ribbon.

The typographer then has to create a kind of glyph (or maybe a ligature) from scratch. Typography experts have explained elsewhere that sometimes we just have to insert a note to the typographer in a manuscript, saying that we want a true fraction. The character viewer in the operating system and in Word’s “insert symbol” option on the Home ribbon used to show 1/4 and 1/2 characters, but those are not appearing at the moment. The problem is that not all fonts contain a full range of fractions, so you might not be able to insert even a common fraction like two-thirds. In Word’s Preferences (Mac) or Options > Proofing from the File ribbon (Windows), go to the AutoFormat tab to set whether or not fractions will be replaced with a character when one exists in that font family.
