# How to print $\odot$ without it being cropped? (\[CircleDot] symbol)

### Preamble:

In some applications (astronomy, cosmology, etc), it is useful to measure things in solar quantities, say distances in $R_\odot$ or masses in $M_\odot$, and so on. Now and then I see Mathematica plots in respected papers, failing to display the symbol $\odot$ properly.

### What happens:

In Mathematica the symbol is called \[CircleDot]. So, I write (it looks somewhat better in the cell):

Style["\!$$\*SubscriptBox[\(M$$, $$\[CircleDot]$$]\)"] // TraditionalForm


As one can see, the symbol is cropped, and it is worrying.

### Half of the solution:

Use ScriptBaseLineShifts, for example

Style["\!$$\*SubscriptBox[\(M$$, $$\[CircleDot]$$]\)",


However, this affects other indices, consider:

(Method 1, cropped)

versus

(Method 2, other indices affected).

### Question:

How to make a nice looking $\mathrm{log_{10} M/M_{\odot}}$ in Mathematica in Style framework?

I couldn't find an analogue of StringJoin for Style expressions, and neither could I find a way to move indices around without using Style options (which one typically needs in the end anyway).

I am under Ubuntu 14, MMA 10, and was observed in older Mathematica version too.

• @Öskå: My apologies, I believe it is standard in MMA 10, but might not be present in older versions. – Alexey Bobrick Nov 24 '14 at 13:29
• @Öskå: Yes, that should work (even with Salmon), but how would it help to form a line with $M_\odot$ as part of it? – Alexey Bobrick Nov 24 '14 at 13:34
• Applause, thank you!!! Would you care to combine your two last comments into an answer? – Alexey Bobrick Nov 24 '14 at 13:44
• @Öskå: Yes, CircleDog would probably look more like a torus. Otherwise, please do, for it completely answers my question. – Alexey Bobrick Nov 24 '14 at 13:47
• Tested on three platforms. Win: works. Mac: works. Linux: cropped. Tagging as such. @AlexeyBobrick Please do report the problem to WRI. – Szabolcs Nov 24 '14 at 14:01

The circle is not cropped when used in a Subscript:

Subscript["M", "⊙"]


Thus, by using this answer you can easily do:

str = "This is some text with a CircleDot: " <>
ToString[Subscript["M", "⊙"], FormatType -> StandardForm]


If you want some Style:

Style[str, Red, 20]


• Fantastic, thanks again! – Alexey Bobrick Nov 24 '14 at 13:50
• I don't understand the problem: I had no difficulty in getting the circle-dot subscript as a subscript on a character M, whether in an Input cell or an in-line math within a Text cell, simply by typing M Ctrl+_ Esc c. Esc Ctrl+space (where "+" indicates holding down two keys at once). – murray Nov 24 '14 at 18:11
• @murray, the problem is version-dependent - occurs only in linux, plus see the example line in the question. I used Typesetting->Subscript in the menu. – Alexey Bobrick Nov 24 '14 at 22:32