Accents

I. Accent in LaTeX

In many cases if no packages are used or if a special version of LaTeX is not used, LaTeX will not understand the simple letter 'á' with the acute accent. There are different ways to solve this problem, for example using the code \acute{a} we actually get the letter 'a' with the acute accent (á).
This is only a simple example for fixing this problem, with the following codes you will be able to write also an accent that stand on top of a group of letters, like that: \widehat{ABC}, that stands for the angle in B of a triangle with A, B and C as vertices.
Here there are all the useful codes for making all sort of accents in LaTeX:

CODE


                    $a' or a^{\prime}$
                    $a''$
                    $\hat{a}$
                    $\bar{a}$
                    $\grave{a}$
                    $\acute{a}$
                    $\dot{a}$
                    $\ddot{a}$
                    $\not{a}$
                    $\mathring{a}$
                    $\overrightarrow{AB}$
                    $\overleftarrow{AB}$
                    $a'''$
                    $a''''$
                    $\overline{aaa}$
                    $\check{a}$
                    $\breve{a}$
                    $\vec{a}$
                    $\dddot{a}$
                    $\widetilde{AAA}$
                    $\widehat{AAA}$
                    $\stackrel\frown{AAA}$
                    $\tilde{a}$
                    $\underline{a}$

II. The importance of Accents in Mathematical text

As we have seen before putting a 'big hat' above a group of letters is important in mathematic because it indicates wich angle is considered, as shown here:

CODE

$\widehat{ABC}$

We know that the angle of 23º in the triangle is the angle B, which stands in-between the angle A and C.
Another important thing big arrow on the top of AB (number 11 and 12), this signify that AB is a vector.
This is just to show some example of the meaning of some mathematical accents.

III. Test Yourself

Now try and guess which of the previous code stands for this type of accents:

Math Test 1

$\hat{a}$

Math Test 2

$\bar{a}$