Do not be afraid of TEX! Easy awesome looking posts HOWTO

Grayham

Joined May 18, 2010
79
I use Calc (Excel alternative for in OpenOffice)
http://www.openoffice.org

This is free and an open source spreadsheet.
I like this because I like adding my variables neatly in cells, then have one complex cell that does all the formulas on them.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
OK, I'm trying to use super script with no luck.

[superscript]10^-6[/superscript]

Any ideas?

[super script]10^-6[/super script]
 

retched

Joined Dec 5, 2009
5,207
Im here to help. ;)

I have noticed that tags in general are a problem for some.

Ive seen folks try to use " (quotes) for the quote tag, and code: for code tags.

Without a screen grab or a & type html code (Which are usually turned off for security)
you cant show the users what exactly to type.

This has been a popular thread. 6000+ views..
 

Thread Starter

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
Occasionally I like to generate LaTex equations apart from AAC, so I use an online Tex editor. In case anyone is interested, here it is.
That's a 404 error now.

I searched for "Online TeX equation editor" and found lots of results, here's one that looks kind of neat, it lets you type in the equation the way most people here do, then it re-formats it for you.

At the bottom, choose phpBB in the drop down menu to get the tex /tex tags added so it's ready to go!
http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php
 

someonesdad

Joined Jul 7, 2009
1,583
Here's a nifty little tidbit. Many of you know I like to use python for scripting. There's a python library you can get called sympy that can do symbolic manipulations. It's pretty good for elementary stuff, but it can get painfully slow on some things. Still, for someone who doesn't have access to a computer algebra system, it could still help you with your calculations.

The nice feature I found was that it can export its calculated equations in LaTeX (as well as some other math formats). Here's an example that calculates the first 10 terms of the cosine's power series (of course, the odd powers have coefficients of zero):

Rich (BB code):
from sympy import *
x = Symbol("x")
print latex(cos(x).series(x, 0, 10))
This outputs
Rich (BB code):
1 - \frac{1}{2} x^{2} + \frac{1}{24} x^{4} - \frac{1}{720} x^{6} + 
\frac{1}{40320} x^{8} + \operatorname{\mathcal{O}}\left(x^{10}\right)
Now, paste this into a {tex}...{/tex} block in your post (change braces to square brackets around tex and \tex) and you should get the following equation:

\(1 - \frac{1}{2} x^{2} + \frac{1}{24} x^{4} - \frac{1}{720} x^{6} + \frac{1}{40320} x^{8} + \operatorname{\mathcal{O}}\left(x^{10}\right)
\)
 

PC Pete

Joined Nov 11, 2011
10
This discussion is really helpful. It reminded me of the HP48 series graphing calculators.

Does anyone else have one of these?

I find the equation editor is just amazing, but dreadfully slow once you get past more than a few terms with fractions. Of course it can't be exported, unless someone (!) wrote a simple HP-to-Tex converter tool...

The nicest thing about that implementation is that you can actually solve for variables using the "raw" equation. That's a great help for those of us (ahem) with poor maths skills!

But I love the idea of using Tex to properly format formulae, whether in questions or answers!
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
Testing a big TeX block: Everything below is in one tag, works OK:

\(f(z) = \left\{ \begin{array}{rcl}
\overline{\overline{z^2}+\cos z} & \mbox{for}
& |z|<3 \\ 0 & \mbox{for} & 3\leq|z|\leq5 \\
\sin\overline{z} & \mbox{for} & |z|>5
\end{array}\right
\
\)

--ETA: Simply quote this post to see the formatting if it is confusing!
That last two equations in the length test are from the reference Symbols.pdf posted above.
I'm trying to use an array in a blog post and having troubles getting it to even recognize the opening tag. But in the process I did figure out how to clean up the above example:


[tex]f(z) = \left\{ \begin{array}{rcl}\overline{\overline{z^2}+\cos z} & \mbox{for} & |z|<3 \\ 0 & \mbox{for} & 3\leq|z|\leq5 \\
\sin\overline{z} & \mbox{for} & |z|>5
\end{array}
[/tex]


\(f(z) = \left\{ \begin{array}{rcl}\overline{\overline{z^2}+\cos z} & \mbox{for} & |z|<3 \\ 0 & \mbox{for} & 3\leq|z|\leq5 \\
\sin\overline{z} & \mbox{for} & |z|>5
\end{array}
\)

Or even better


[tex]f(z) = \left\{ \begin{array}{rcrcl}\overline{\overline{z^2}+\cos z} & \mbox{for} & &|z|&\lt 3 \\ 0 & \mbox{for} & 3\leq&|z|&\leq5 \\
\sin\overline{z} & \mbox{for} & 5<&|z|&
\end{array}
[/tex]


\(f(z) = \left\{ \begin{array}{rcrcl}\overline{\overline{z^2}+\cos z} & \mbox{for} & &|z|&\lt 3 \\ 0 & \mbox{for} & 3\leq&|z|&\leq5 \\
\sin\overline{z} & \mbox{for} & 5<&|z|&
\end{array}
\)
 
Last edited:

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
I ran across a MimeTex reference that has a lot of good stuff in it. I don't know how strictly it matches the version of MimeTex that the forum uses.

http://www.sciencechatforum.com/documents/

\(
\unitlength{.6} \picture(100) {
(50,50){\circle(99)} %%head%%
(20,55;50,0;2){\fs{+1}\hat\bullet} %%eyes%%
(50,40){\bullet} %%nose%%
(50,35){\circle(50,25;34)} %%upper lip%%
(50,35){\circle(50,45;34)} %%lower lip%% }
\)

But the above works, so my bet is that most of it works.
 
Top