# TraditionalForm overriding settings given to Column for row alignment

With the code below, the alignment at the equal sign is performed as expected:

Column[{HoldForm[y] == x, HoldForm[R^2] == 0.998}, Alignment -> "\[Equal]"]


However, when the code was modified to display in TraditionalForm:

Column[TraditionalForm /@ {HoldForm[y] == x, HoldForm[R^2] == 0.998},
Alignment-> "\[Equal]"]


the alignment is broken:

My questions are:

1. Will TraditionalForm unpredictably break the column alignment in the output?

2. Is there a way to display equations in TraditionalForm aligned at the equal sign inside Column? I want to embed the equations inside graphics with Inset

I knew some workarounds such as the Row structuring, but want to have a simpler (if possible) version. And I'm curious why the Alignment->"marker" syntax will fail with TraditionalForm.

• Separate to this question you may want to consider using Defer: Column[{Defer[y == x], Defer[R^2 == 0.998]}, Alignment -> "\[Equal]"] – Mike Honeychurch Nov 10 '15 at 5:11

## 1 Answer

The problem is that you gave "\[Equal]" as the centering character, but you should have given "\[LongEqual]".

Column[TraditionalForm /@ {HoldForm[y] == x, HoldForm[R^2] == 0.998},
Alignment -> "\[LongEqual]"]


To see that TraditionalForm replaces == with "[LongEqual]", you can open up the output cell your code produces by clicking on Show Expression from the Cell menu (Cmnd+Shift+E on OS X).

• May be worthwhile adding a screen grab of the underlying boxes so that we can see that TraditionalForm creates the \[LongEqual]` – Mike Honeychurch Nov 10 '15 at 5:10
• @MikeHoneychurch. That makes for a messy-looking answer. I hope my update is a satisfactory substitute. – m_goldberg Nov 10 '15 at 5:25