Creating a scalable square root symbol using CSS can be achieved with the following code snippet:
.root {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: middle;
}
.radix1 {
display: inline-block;
width: 0.2em;
height: 1.5ex;
vertical-align: bottom;
border-top: 0.2ex solid;
border-right: 0.15ex solid;
transform: skew(25deg);
}
.radix2 {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: bottom;
border-top: 0.2ex solid;
border-left: 0.15ex solid;
transform: skew(-15deg);
}
.radicand {
display: inline-block;
padding-left: 0.5em;
transform: skew(15deg);
}To represent larger arguments such as fractions or matrices, line breaks can be used in conjunction with this method.
Among the questions and wish list for further development are:
- In the current implementation, radix1 and radix2 span components only perfectly align together in the first example. How can additional margin be inserted between them based on the total height of the square root?
- Is there a way to scale the height of radix1 dynamically according to the overall height of the square root? For instance, setting the height to a percentage value like 40% does not yield the desired outcome.
- Exploring alternative methods: Are there better approaches to achieve this visual effect?