Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!oberon!cit-vax!ucla-cs!sonia!khayo From: khayo@sonia.cs.ucla.edu (Erazm J. Behr) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Keycaps--Mathematical Symbols Message-ID: <8552@shemp.UCLA.EDU> Date: Fri, 9-Oct-87 02:59:02 EDT Article-I.D.: shemp.8552 Posted: Fri Oct 9 02:59:02 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Oct-87 12:32:18 EDT References: <2164@sfsup.UUCP> <4051@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> Sender: root@CS.UCLA.EDU Reply-To: khayo@MATH.UCLA.EDU (Erazm J. Behr) Organization: Boelter Hall of Fame Lines: 70 Summary: Become a TeXnician!!! In article <4051@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> graifer@net1.UUCP (Dan Graifer) writes: >In article <2164@sfsup.UUCP> dwd@sfsup.UUCP (D.W.Dougherty) writes: >>I just opened the box to my Mac last Saturday and started playing >>around with MacWrite. I noticed, much to my dismay, that there is >>little support of mathematical symbols. I do an awful lot of writing >>which involves some pretty heavy mathematics and I need that flexa- >>bility. Can anybody recommend a package that supports just about >>every mathematical symbol you could think of?? It may certainly >>be PD. >> >>Thank you. > >There are three classes of solutions to this problem: >1. If you only need one symbol at any horizontal location on a line, just >use the Symbol Font supplied with your Mac. Use the Keycaps DA (shrink your >document window, and leave the DA open on the desktop) to find symbol/keyboard >correspondence. > Symbol has been created by a math minor undergraduate after a few nights of heavy drinking. Why it would have only the right-to-left set inclusion is totally beyond me (maybe the undergraduate was studying Hebrew at the time ?) The font is simply useless - if you really want to write math. There is a (ImageWriter bitmap) font Math, which is better - but still limited by the number of option/shift/key combinations. Also, anything a little more complicated (but still very common in math) like setting up matrices, vertical alignment etc. is very difficult using any font/word processor duet that I know of. >2. Use your favorite paint/draw program (the latter is better for editting) >to create your equations, and copy/paste them to your wp document. This will >get easier when MultiFinder is released. > I used to do that but not anymore - see below. >3. There are several commercial packages that are essentially specialized >draw programs for editting mathematical symbols. MS Word 3.0x has a limited >similer capability built in. > > MacEqn > MathType > MathWriter > Expressionist I haven't tried any of these, but I've read about them. I don't mean to offend the authors, but the above programs seem to be total kludges after you learn TeX (a typesetting system developed by D. Knuth @ Stanford), which is no easy task - but: 1) even after a few hours you are able to produce a nice and complicated paper with all the symbols you can imagine 2) after a few days you begin to get a grip on the most difficult aspect, fine points of page layout and alignment (I'm talking millimeters here) 3) after a week or so you develop a set of macros that suit your particular needs and make it all a snap 4) after a month you'll want to learn PostScript and how to incorporate PS code in a TeX document 5) in the end you look at your old papers/exams/notes created with MacDraw and the like with complete disgust, asking yourself: why was I making a fool of myself by showing these doodles to anyone and pretending I had entered the Computer Age? Now the bad news: TeX packages for the Mac are rather expensive - unless you are entitled to some academic discount; the one I'm familiar with, TeXtures published by Addison-Wesley retails for about $500 (wow!) and I wouldn't be able to afford it - but my ID card at the UCLA bookstore takes $420 (wow!!!) off of it. Talk about fairness and justice. I know that many other places have made a deal like that with AW - maybe some companies have, too. Needless to say, I don't even know Dr. Knuth, and have no connection whatsoever with AW. I have no connections at all - period. Eric ----------------------------------------------------------- >>>>---------------> khayo@math.ucla.edu