Re: There is a severe problem with EQN and square roots

On Wednesday, 11 February 2026 20:41:14 GMT Sigfrid Lundberg wrote:
> There is a severe problem with EQN and square roots. I'm
> using equation 1.23.0
> 
> eqn -v
> GNU eqn (groff) version 1.23.0
> 
> See example:
> 
> .SH
> EQN Square Root problem
> .LP
> There is an example of an ugly square root in Eq. (1).
> .EQ (1)
> N hat sub {1, 2} = K over 2 +- sqrt { K sup 2 over 4 + { h K } over r }
> .EN
> 
> and attached PDF. I've used different fonts, and the result is the same.
> This is STIX
> 
> Has this been fixed in more recent versions?
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Sigfrid

Hi Sigfrid,

I believe the problem might be because the 'sqrt' and 'radicalex' are not both 
coming fro the regular Symbol font, one or both are coming from different 
fonts. eqn expects both of the to come from the S font. It may be improved if 
you include '.special S' before the equation, this means that symbols 
(including sqrt and radicalex) be sourced from S (if available) otherwise from 
your STIX font.

If STIX has the Overline glyph U+203E in the font it may work with:-

.char \[radicalex] \[u203E]

(CombiningOverline U+0305 will not work).

Cheers

Deri