Tiefgestellt

Tiefgestellt is a typographic term used in German to describe a character that is placed below the baseline, usually smaller in size. The adjective tiefgestellt refers to the property of such a character, while the noun Tiefstellung denotes the act or state of subscript. It is the counterpart to hochgestellt, or superscript, which places characters above the baseline.

Subscripts appear in various domains. In mathematics and computer science, indices are written as Tiefgestellt, for example a_i or x_j, to denote elements of a sequence or coordinates. In chemistry and physics, numbers are often Tiefgestellt in chemical formulas to indicate the quantity of atoms, as in H2O or CO2. In some notations for isotopes and certain scientific annotations, subscripts provide additional information such as atomic numbers in a compact form. Subscripts are also used in some linguistic or phonetic annotations to mark features, though this usage is less common in everyday text.

Digital representation and typesetting methods for Tiefstellung include HTML’s sub element, CSS properties such as vertical-align: sub, and common word-processing shortcuts (for example, toggling subscript with a keyboard shortcut on many systems). Unicode provides a range of subscript characters (digits and a limited set of letters) in dedicated code blocks, but not every character has a subscript form, which can require workaround using the sub element or font-specific solutions.

Overall, Tiefstellung remains a basic tool in typographic notation for conveying structural information beneath the baseline across disciplines.