How to Print Subscript Text in Python

In this tutorial, we’re going to explore one of many capabilities of Python’s extensive feature set: printing subscript text. Subscript text refers to characters that appear slightly below the normal text line and are sometimes rendered in a smaller font.

They are commonly used in mathematics and chemistry to denote variables or elements. Python doesn’t natively support subscript text but with the help of Unicode, it becomes possible.

Step 1: Understanding Unicode Characters

Unicode is a computing standard that allows a system to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world’s writing systems. In Python, you can utilize Unicode characters to print subscript text. You can find a list of subscript/superscript Unicode characters here.

Step 2: The Print Function

In order to display the subscript text, we will utilize Python’s built-in print function. This versatile function outputs text to the console and can handle Unicode characters seamlessly.

Here’s a simple example of printing subscript text:

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print("H\u2082O")

The “\u2082” in the string is a Unicode character that represents the subscript form of the number 2.

Step 3: Converting Text to Subscript

You may have a scenario where you need a piece of text to be converted to a subscript. You can achieve this using a dictionary mapping of all subscript characters and implementing a function:

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def to_subscript(text):
   subscript_map = {
     "0":"\u2080", "1":"\u2081", "2":"\u2082",
     "3":"\u2083", "4":"\u2084", "5":"\u2085",
     "6":"\u2086", "7":"\u2087", "8":"\u2088",
     "9":"\u2089", "a":"\u2090", "b":"\u2091"
     }
   return ''.join(subscript_map.get(char, char) for char in text)
 
print(to_subscript("H2O"))

In this code snippet, we create a function to_subscript. This function utilizes the subscript_map dictionary to convert each character in the input text to its subscript equivalent. If a character does not exist in the dictionary, it is left as is.

Output:

H₂O

Conclusion

Even though Python does not natively support subscript text, by creatively utilizing Unicode characters, we can implement this feature. This method can be used to improve the readability of program outputs, especially in scientific computing scenarios. So, keep exploring and keep improving!