Trevor
In MetaPost, I am trying to place several labels so that their baselines all are aligned. Consider the following command:

label.bot(btex $a_t$ etex, (0,0));
label.bot(btex $b{+}d$ etex, (14,0));
label.bot(btex $c{\times}e$ etex,(32,0));

![orig_line.png](/image?hash=3e1a408bc4f2ec1dcf695a56f6128ea905c563b5e65c88b2c49657cf33f6defb)
Unfortunately, this command places each label's baseline at a different vertical position. I would like all of their baselines to be at the same vertical position.

**How can I align the labels by their baselines?**
Trevor
One solution is to use \strut or \mathstrut:

label.bot(btex $\mathstrut a_t$ etex, (0,0));
label.bot(btex $\mathstrut b{+}d$ etex, (14,0));
label.bot(btex $\mathstrut c{\times}e$ etex,(32,0));

![new_line.png](/image?hash=36eb399d3988f03d64a063f2c469c72371c1518da6fa6d67a2c8611a5cac4a34)

*Source:* This technique is mentioned in Sections 11.2.2 & 17.7 of [Drawing With MetaPost](https://github.com/thruston/Drawing-with-Metapost/blob/master/Drawing-with-Metapost.pdf) by Toby Thurston.