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Subject:Re: Equations in Document From:Bonnie Nestor <mnj -at- ORNL -dot- GOV> Date:Tue, 9 May 1995 09:14:58 -0400
In article <v01510100abd40cdba956 -at- [140 -dot- 145 -dot- 16 -dot- 80]>, Marc Santacroce
<santa -at- tfs -dot- com> wrote:
> At 9:53 AM 5/5/95, Paul Tarr wrote:
> >Has anyone out there had experience with writing documents that include
> >equations? Particularily, equation intensive documents. What tools or
> >editors do you use? I am using ms-word which has a reasonable equation
> >editor but each equation uses up a lot of memory! After about 8-10 pages,
> >the size of the ms-word document hangs up my PC. Breaking a document into
> >30-50 files is a real pain.
> >
> >I would be particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has
> >experience with an editor/program that has a simple graphical interface
> >(i.e., point and click) or produces a document that doesn't use up an
> >unreasonable amount of memory/disk space.
> >
> Try MathType. I ued it extensively during a nine month contract. I don't
> know how the MSWord equation compares, but MathType is a point-and-click
> program that incorporates more math functions than most of use will ever
> need, and you don't have to be a mathematician to use it. I don't have the
> company or address handy, but I'll look it up if you are interested.
The MSWord Equation editor _is_ MathType, or at least (according to the
introduction in the booklet that came with my Word 5.1 for Macintosh
package) "a special version of the MathType equation editor from Design
Science, Inc." There's a comment in this introduction that "If you work a
lot with equations, you may find that the extended version of MathType is
better suited to your needs." At least when this booklet came out, Design
Science was located at 4028 Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803, telephone
1-800-827-0685.
Speaking from my experience in editing articles for physics journals, the
best thing for equation-intensive documents is TeX (pronounced "tech").
The American Mathematical Society uses it, and the American Physical
Society is adopting it as well. However, it doesn't meet Paul Tarr's
requirements of a simple graphical interface -- it's essentially a markup
language, albeit a very elegant one. However, one of the features of
"real" MathType is the ability to save constructed equations as TeX, and I
gather that there are now a lot more bells and whistles for viewing the
ASCII files that TeX produces than there were when I was actively
wrestling with page after page of equations.
Bonnie Nestor
mnj -at- ornl -dot- gov
DISCLAIMER: I work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for Martin Marietta Energy
Systems, Inc., which is under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy -- but
I don't speak for any of them, and they return the favor.
