jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) (08/24/90)
Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to
create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your
choice. I recall this one program called MathWriter that allowed for
very EASY generation of formulae, but I can no longer find it.
In any case, for any kind of detailed, technical writing, one needs this
capability. True, Word does let you make formulae, but it's cumbersome and
slow. There must be a better way, and I'm sure there is, somewhere.
Anyway, I would appreciate any and all input about this... E-mail is
just fine!
--
=======================================================================
#include <std/disclaimer.h>
=:^)
Jim Jagielski NASA/GSFC, Code 711.1
jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov Greenbelt, MD 20771
"Kilimanjaro is a pretty tricky climb. Most of it's up, until you reach
the very, very top, and then it tends to slope away rather sharply."gerhard@cs.arizona.edu (Gerhard Mehldau) (08/26/90)
In article <3218@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) writes: > Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to > create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your > choice. I recall this one program called MathWriter that allowed for > very EASY generation of formulae, but I can no longer find it. I've been using Expressionist for about a year now. It was recommended as the best of its kind (there are a few others out there, but I don't recall their names). While it certainly is much more capable and easier to use than Word's Formula feature, I still don't consider it a good product. It crashes frequently on me, and, in the process, seems to corrupt its own files. I've resorted to just using it in Scratchpad mode, creating one formula at a time, and copying that into Word. If I later need to modify or tweak it, I have to copy it back from Word to Expressionist. Also, screen update is _very_ slow (on a Mac II), and its habit of always centering the current insertion point on the screen is, at least, very annoying. - Gerhard -- -> Gerhard Mehldau Dept. of Computer Science internet: gerhard@cs.arizona.edu University of Arizona uucp: {cmcl2,noao,uunet}!arizona!gerhard Tucson, AZ 85721, U.S.A. voice: +1 (602) 621-4632
legler@masig2.masig1.ocean.fsu.edu (David M. Legler) (08/26/90)
Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to
create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your
choice. I recall this one program called MathWriter that allowed for
very EASY generation of formulae, but I can no longer find it.
I have used MathType and it works well for us. Basically it allows
you to select the symbols and the placement in a "hot-key" style (no
explicit copy-paste step needed...hurray). Once your equation is
finished, just copy-paste the whole equation into your Word document.
Mathtype even has a demo disk that you can get... (can't recall the
publisher or number, but can pass this information on when I return to
the office).
Mr. David M. Legler ||(904)644-1159 or 644-4581
Mesoscale Air-Sea Interaction ||Bitnet legler%masig1.ocean.fsu.edu@cunyvm
Group ||SPAN 7480::"legler@masig1.ocean.fsu.edu"
MS B-174 Love-012 ||Arpa legler@masig1.ocean.fsu.edu(128.186.3.1)
Florida State University ||
Tallahassee, FL 32306-3041 || "An Apple II a day, keeps the PC blues away"
andrews@s30.csrd.uiuc.edu (John Andrews) (08/26/90)
I have used both Expressionist and Mathtype fairly extensively. I think that Mathtype is the better product. It allows more control, and updates the screen much faster than Expressionist. Expressionist reevaluates the screen after EVERY key is pushed. -- John Andrews (andrews@csrd.uiuc.edu) Graduate Research Assistant, Center for Supercomputing R&D, Urbana, IL
philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) (08/26/90)
In article <1990Aug25.193431.20209@csrd.uiuc.edu>, andrews@s30.csrd.uiuc.edu (John Andrews) writes: > I have used both Expressionist and Mathtype fairly extensively. I think > that Mathtype is the better product. It allows more control, and updates the > screen much faster than Expressionist. Expressionist reevaluates the screen > after EVERY key is pushed. > I have another program called Formulator. I haven't used it enough to give a proper review, but it seems to work well. It is claimed to use TeX algorithms for layout, and includes an option to output TeX (I tried this as a way of generating TeX in an (at least initially) human-readable form, but the resulting TeX was even less readable than usual, so I gave up on that...). Philip Machanick philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (siegman) (08/27/90)
Expressionist is among the best, if not the best, of these "equation editor" programs; but I can't imagine anyone with a Mac who wants to do any significiant amount of math not using TeX in the form of Textures or one of the competitors to Textures. (Textures is the only implementation of TeX for the Mac that I've tried, but it's just plain superb, and I haven't seen any reviews saying any of the competitors are better.)
ddaniel@lindy.stanford.edu (D. Daniel Sternbergh) (08/27/90)
In article <LEGLER.90Aug25141357@masig2.masig1.ocean.fsu.edu> legler@masig2.masig1.ocean.fsu.edu (David M. Legler) writes: > > Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to > create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your > choice. I recall this one program called MathWriter that allowed for > very EASY generation of formulae, but I can no longer find it. > >I have used MathType and it works well for us. Basically it allows >you to select the symbols and the placement in a "hot-key" style (no >explicit copy-paste step needed...hurray). Once your equation is >finished, just copy-paste the whole equation into your Word document. Our group has used MathType for several years and I really like v 2.0 a lot. It is still a little buggy, and if you don't like their "convenient" interface your screwed, since there's not much flexibility to get around it, but I like it so I'm happy. If you use MathType or Expressionist to copy stuff into word, there was a fantastic fkey posted recently on comp.binaries.mac which makes the baseline work right in Word (Word ignores the baseline information -- too typical (is anyone at MS listening?)). By all means you must get it and use it -- it's terrific! Find it on c.b.m or check sumex, but if you can't find it anywhere I could probably send a copy of ours. == Daniel == Daniel Sternbergh ddaniel@lindy.stanford.edu {decwrl|sun}!lindy.stanford.edu!ddaniel BITNET: ddaniel%lindy@stanford
uphwk@TERRA.OSCS.MONTANA.EDU (Bill Kinnersley) (08/27/90)
[In "Applications that create mathematical formulae"<3218@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>,
jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) said:]
: Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to
: create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your
: choice. I recall this one program called MathWriter that allowed for
: very EASY generation of formulae, but I can no longer find it.
:
EquationMaker will do what you want. Works fine!
--
--Bill Kinnersley
Physics Department Montana State University Bozeman, MT 59717
INTERNET: uphwk@terra.oscs.montana.edu BITNET: UPHWK@MTSUNIX1
226 Transfer complete.dana@are.berkeley.edu (Dana E. Keil) (08/27/90)
In article <3218@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) writes: >Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to >create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your >choice. I am a very satisfied user of MathType and would recommend it highly. Some of the other responses in this thread prompt me to post the following thoughts/comments. 1. Several mentions of "crashes" or "buginess" in various of the equation editors. No matter which one you are using, if you are using it with Microsoft Word, be sure that you have version 4.0B of Word which fixes Word's corruption of graphics that was the cause of many crashes that seemed to be the fault of the equation editors. 2. The address of the publishers of MathType: Design Science Inc., 6475B East Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 392, Long Beach, CA 90803. (213) 433-0685. 3. MathType version 2.11 has a translator that will produce TeX output (there is no capability to import TeX from some other source, however, although TeX produced in MathType can be taken back in for editing as long as the necessary MathType header has not been deleted). Dana E. Keil, Principal Word Processing Specialist, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley dana@are.berkeley.edu
palkovic@linac.fnal.gov (John A. Palkovic) (08/28/90)
In article <244@sierra.STANFORD.EDU> siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU writes: >> Expressionist is among the best, if not the best, of these >> "equation editor" programs; but I can't imagine anyone with a Mac >> who wants to do any significiant amount of math not using TeX in >> the form of Textures or one of the competitors to Textures. Expressionist can save your equation as TeX commands. Command-F is the keystroke and there is a menu item, of course. I use this all the time and it works flawlessly. The screen updates are annoyingly slow, though. -- John Palkovic (708) 840-3527 linac!palkovic, palkovic@linac.fnal.gov University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dept. of Physics
Chris.Gehlker@p12.f56.n114.z1.fidonet.org (Chris Gehlker) (08/28/90)
> Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to > create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your > choice. There was a review of 4 of these pupies in MacUser. Around the June issue I believe. -- Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!56.12!Chris.Gehlker Internet: Chris.Gehlker@p12.f56.n114.z1.fidonet.org
dana@are.berkeley.edu (Dana E. Keil) (08/30/90)
In article <25543.26DA84E1@stjhmc.fidonet.org> Chris.Gehlker@p12.f56.n114.z1.fidonet.org (Chris Gehlker) replies to a question: >> Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to >> create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your >> choice. > >There was a review of 4 of these pupies in MacUser. Around the June issue I >believe. As one who uses MathType daily, (disclaimer warning: I have been a beta tester for MathType, I don't have any monetary stake in it at all) I have to say that the reviewer really dropped the ball in this review by criticizing MathType for something that I think should be considered a plus. I think the reviewer's criticism came from reviewing the program while not taking the time to figure out what it does. Specifically, the reviewer didn't like the fact that MathType (as compared, apparently, to some of the others) will do certain things automatically for you. For example, it will distinguish between certain combinations of characters to decide whether they should be considered variables or functions. If a variable it will be italicized, if a function it will be displayed in plain type. It does this automatically and on the fly so that typing the letter l and the letter o will yield italicized characters but as soon as you type the letter g the type of the three letters will change to plain and you have the function "log". In the review MathType is criticized for doing this as if its a constraint that makes the program somehow less flexible. What the reviewer didn't say and apparently didn't know is that this automatic formatting is very easy to control and turn off when you don't want it while saving a lot of time by automatically doing it for you instead of you having to take the time to manually indicate whether "log" should be displayed in plain or italics. Let me know if I'm wrong but isn't this the reason we're getting and using computers? Because of this flaw in the review, I think that the "mouse-ratings" for the programs reviewed are not right and that MathType should have at least the same rating or better than the others. I have to quickly add here that I have not used any of the other programs so I am not qualified to come up with my own ratings; it just looks to me like the only stated reason for the difference in the number of mice awarded is the reviewer's mistaken notion of some kind of inflexibility in MathType. It seems to me that, on the contrary, MathType is a very flexible, configurable program that saves time by doing things the way you want them without you having to do them manually.
jeffe@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (George Jefferson ) (08/31/90)
In article <38544@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> dana@are.berkeley.edu (Dana E. Keil) writes: >In article <25543.26DA84E1@stjhmc.fidonet.org> Chris.Gehlker@p12.f56.n114.z1.fidonet.org (Chris Gehlker) >replies to a question: >>> Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to >>> create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your >>> choice. >> >>There was a review of 4 of these pupies in MacUser. Around the June issue I >>believe. > >As one who uses MathType daily, (disclaimer warning: I have been a beta >tester for MathType, I don't have any monetary stake in it at all) >I have to say that the reviewer really >dropped the ball in this review... I had the impression that the reviewer only read the back of the box on that one. For example, Milo got 4 or 5 mice. Milo does some nice things, but as an equation _typesetter_ it is absolutely useless. (well maybe the output quality is good enough for a homework paper or something..). The reviewer obviously didn't try to print anything or he would have given Milo 1/2 a mouse. I wish MacUser would go back to doing a handful of good reviews instead of this 101-mini-reviews bs.
an12280@mdaali.cancer.utexas.edu (David Gutierrez) (08/31/90)
I also am pleased with MathType for ease of use and power. I have only one complaint. MathType uses Times and Times Italic (or Bold) fonts and insists on having both available in the font menu. I had harmonized all laser fonts in our department using Font Harmonizer (part of the Suitcase II package) so that only Times appeared in the Font menu and the appropriate screen font was selected simply by choosing italic/bold/bold-italic from the Style menu. Now our MathType users have four entries for Times font and for no others. I explained this to them, but I'm not sure that they've figured it out yet. I hope that this gets fixed sometime soon. David Gutierrez an12280@mdaali.cancer.utexas.edu "Only fools are positive." - Moe Howard
dana@are.berkeley.edu (Dana E. Keil) (09/01/90)
In article <4080@lib.tmc.edu> an12280@mdaali.cancer.utexas.edu (David Gutierrez) writes: >I also am pleased with MathType for ease of use and power. I have only one >complaint. > >MathType uses Times and Times Italic (or Bold) fonts and insists on having >both available in the font menu. I had harmonized all laser fonts in our >department using Font Harmonizer (part of the Suitcase II package) so that >only Times appeared in the Font menu and the appropriate screen font was >selected simply by choosing italic/bold/bold-italic from the Style menu. > I think, when you say "insists on having," you're referring to a message that is seen on startup that says something to the effect of "I Times Italic" must be installed. I think I can tell you how to deal with this (I am running MathType without I Times Italic installed). After opening MathType choose Change typefaces from the preferences menu, change (using the font popup) the mention or mentions of I Times Italic in the typefaces dialog to Times and check the box for italic (assuming that you want your variables to be italic). Quit MathType and delete I Times Italic and all the other Timeses except for your merged font from your system. Now when you start MathType you should get no message even though you don't have all those other Times thingys messing up your font menus. Let me know if this doesn't work for some reason, I know it's possible to get things fixed up since, as I mentioned, that's the way I've got mine set up. Yours, Dana Keil, dana@are.berkeley.edu
an12280@mdaali.cancer.utexas.edu (David Gutierrez) (09/04/90)
In article <38582@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> dana@are.berkeley.edu (Dana E. Keil) writes: > I think, when you say "insists on having," you're referring to a message that > is seen on startup that says something to the effect of "I Times Italic" must > be installed. I think I can tell you how to deal with this (I am running > MathType without I Times Italic installed). After opening MathType choose > Change typefaces from the preferences menu, change (using the font popup) the > mention or mentions of I Times Italic in the typefaces dialog to Times and > check the box for italic (assuming that you want your variables to be italic). > Quit MathType and delete I Times Italic and all the other Timeses except for > your merged font from your system. Now when you start MathType you should get > no message even though you don't have all those other Times thingys messing up > your font menus. My thanks to the two or three people who pointed out to me the solution to my problem. I confess, I didn't RTFM. I'm not a MathType user, but I do have to install it (and lots of other software) on other machines in my department, which does make it difficult to be fully aware of the features of the programs I don't use. By the way, I recently spent an hour looking at the Mac version of FrameMaker. Among its many other features, it includes a MathType- or Expressionist-like equation editor. I don't know how complete it is, but people might want to take a look at it. David Gutierrez an12280@mdaali.cancer.utexas.edu "Only fools are positive." - Moe Howard
phil@waikato.ac.nz (09/12/90)
In article <38544@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, dana@are.berkeley.edu (Dana E. Keil) writes: > In article <25543.26DA84E1@stjhmc.fidonet.org> Chris.Gehlker@p12.f56.n114.z1.fidonet.org (Chris Gehlker) > replies to a question: >>> Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to >>> create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your >>> choice. >> >>There was a review of 4 of these pupies in MacUser. Around the June issue I >>believe. > > As one who uses MathType daily, (disclaimer warning: I have been a beta > tester for MathType, I don't have any monetary stake in it at all) > I have to say that the reviewer really > dropped the ball in this review by criticizing MathType for something > that I think should be considered a plus... [a lot of stuff I agree with] In the Australian MacWorld, a reviewer of MathType vs. Expressionist put MathType on top, which is where I put it when I evaluated them both at version 1 (along with all the competition at then time) for the Maths & Stats Department. We've stuck with MathType and been rewarded for doing so -- as far as I know it's the only one which includes an extra font for symbols and constructs missing from the Symbol font, an otehr such attention to detail. They've still missed a few out, but it's so easy to customise, that I can create the extras using Fontographer or whatever and include them on the palettes. Expressionist comes a close second, but isn't quite as powerful or easy to use, IMHO. -- Phil Etheridge (phil@waikato.ac.nz) /\ /\ -+-,--, .--, ._ Computer Services/Mathematics & Statistics / \/ \ / /--< /-- / University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ. / \/ /__.) \_ /