How to write “independent and identically distributed” symbol in MS Word?

Question

How can I write the symbol below using MS Word equation editor?

Solution

Assuming you mean the current ("new") equation editor, the problem is that it only really supports stretchy "underbrace" characters, not stretchy tilde characters.

The closest I can get is to enter the following (in linear mode)

\matrix(i.i.d.@~)

then select the tilde and click the "Normal text" button ("abc Normal Text" in the Equation Editor's Design ribbon (or the "abc" button in the Mac Word 2011 version), then change the font size of the"~" to, say, 36 or 48pt. What that actually does is to insert a couple of double quotation marks around the tilde and avoids changing the font size of the entire expression.

The tilde is obviously out of proportion and rather thick, but it does at least span the "i.i.d." reasonably well. If you can use "iid" instead of "i.i.d." then the tilde could be smaller - maybe 24pt.