Minor(?) error introduced during typesetting I recently had a paper accepted by a journal which doesn't provide author proofs. Unfortunately, a typographical error was introduced during typesetting, but I had no way to know this until the paper went in print. I'm trying to determine what is the line between a minor typo and an error which requires issuing a correction.

To get into some more specifics, a constant was left out of an equation. Although that sounds really bad on its face, the equation is very standard and everyone in the field already knows the correct form of the equation. I can't realistically conceive of anyone being misled by the error. In fact, I doubt most readers will even notice. But it's technically incorrect as it stands.

This is one of those instances where I feel damned if I do and damned if I don't. Issuing a correction looks bad, but leaving the mistake looks bad as well. I double checked the revised manuscript we submitted and confirmed the error was definitely introduced by the journal staff. What do I do here?
When you say that issuing a correction looks bad, I imagine that you mean issuing an Erratum/Corrigendum. Now, these really don't reflect that badly on you and your career in the first place, but the error honestly sounds so minor that an erratum would be rather overkill. Actually, I imagine many journals might even decline publishing an erratum for such a trivial case.

However, especially if the publication was quite recent, it might be possible to correct it anyway. At least some journals are willing to make small corrections to published articles, sometimes with a small notice, sometimes accompanied by something like a Publisher's note. In such cases it's quite common to see the journal accept responsibility for errors they've introduced in the notice. It might be worth checking if the journal would be willing to do that.