Subscript

Updated: 12/10/2023 by Computer Hope
Example of subscript (x sub two).

Subscript may refer to any of the following:

1. Abbreviated as sub, subscript refers to words or characters that are half the height of a standard character and printed lower than other text. Below is an example of subscript text, which shows "Subscript Text" halfway below the bottom line of the "Normal Text."

Normal Text Subscript Text

Creating subscript in Microsoft Word

Subscript in Microsoft Word

To create subscript in Microsoft Word, highlight the text you want to subscript and click the subscript button, which is the X2 option in the Font section.

Tip

You can also highlight a section of text and press Ctrl+= (equal sign) to change it to subscript. This shortcut can be helpful for when you don't want to access the superscript option in the Ribbon or Toolbar.

Creating subscript in Microsoft Excel

Subscript in Microsoft Excel

To create subscript in Microsoft Excel, follow these steps.

  1. Click the cell containing the text you want to make subscript.
  2. In the formula bar, highlight the character you want to set as subscript.

Highlight characters to create subscript in Microsoft Excel

  1. Press Ctrl+1 to open the Format Cells window.
  2. Click the checkbox for the Subscript option and click OK.

Subscript option in Microsoft Excel

Note

The subscript characters are displayed in the cell, but not in the formula bar.

How to subscript in Google Docs

To subscript text in Google Docs follow the steps below.

  1. Highlight the text you want to subscript.
  2. Click Format in the file menu.
  3. Select Text and click Subscript.
Tip

You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+, to subscript any highlighted text.

Creating subscript in HTML

To subscript text in HTML (hypertext markup language), use the <sub></sub> tags as shown in the example below.

Normal Text <sub>Subscript Text</sub>

Why would anyone need to use subscript?

Besides using subscript for its visual properties, there are other places that it can be used.

  • Listing how many atoms are in a chemical formula. For example, with water, "H2O" indicates there are two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
  • In mathematics, a subscript can describe different versions of the same variable or used to refer to a member of sequence or set.

2. In computer programming, a subscript is a number representing an element in an array. For example, with example[3] or $example[3] the "[3]" is the subscript of the "example" array.

Computer abbreviations, Font, Programming terms, Sub, Superscript, Typography terms, Word processor terms