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Mon 14 May, 2007 05:05 am
Does anyone know a simple and cheap way that I can obtain a software package which will enable me to type, view, and print equations on my PC? Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this.
What type of equations? You talking advanced math, physics type stuff that uses all those greek symbols and the like?
Wilso wrote:What type of equations? You talking advanced math, physics type stuff that uses all those greek symbols and the like?
Basic algebra and calculus. Having a theta symbol would be nice too.
Actually, I'm not graphing anything, I'd just like to be able to write fractions, exponents, integral signs, etc.
Doesn't Microsoft Word have a few symbols, like delta? It doesn't have a very wide range, but it's something.
Hi Brandon,
In later version of Microsoft Word... click the "Insert" button on the top menu bar. Then chose "Object" from the menu.
This will pop a a dialog box with a bunch of object types, choose the one that has the words "Microsoft Equation". This will give a little OLE object in a frame in your document, along with a little menu with mathmatical symbols and templates to handle fractions and exponents and integrals and Sigmas etc.
This is pretty handy for simple stuff.
If you want something more complex, look at "MathType" which runs about $100. I worked with them for a consulting project once and they have a decent piece of software.
ebrown_p wrote:Hi Brandon,
In later version of Microsoft Word... click the "Insert" button on the top menu bar. Then chose "Object" from the menu.
This will pop a a dialog box with a bunch of object types, choose the one that has the words "Microsoft Equation". This will give a little OLE object in a frame in your document, along with a little menu with mathmatical symbols and templates to handle fractions and exponents and integrals and Sigmas etc.
This is pretty handy for simple stuff.
If you want something more complex, look at "MathType" which runs about $100. I worked with them for a consulting project once and they have a decent piece of software.
That's great, thanks! And thanks also to DrewDad for those links! It's great to know so many smart people.
Maybe you would want to get Maple or Mathematica which are maths programs (which one day shortly I will take the time to master!)
Maple:
http://www.maplesoft.com/whatismaple.aspx
Mathematica:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematica
http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/features/
If you actually want a program to do mathematical programming and modelling, graphing etc., then Octave is free, or for physics there is VPython, a simple Google search will return both.
All I want is a way to write equations in documents.
I have looked at the Microsoft Word product, and am trying to become familiar with that. I also found out about TeX, but my attempts to download it have been unsuccessful. Every site which seems to offer it either really offers on accessories like LaTeX, or requires a login and password. In one case, I thought I had finally found a site that allowed me to install MikTex for free, but midway through the install, a window popped up that said, "login denied." I even tried searching for a pay version on Amazon, but a search for TeX under "software" came up blank.
Maybe you should get LaTeX then. Besides it's power in symbols and equations, it is far superior to Microsoft Word for page editing, formatting, referencing and a whole lot of other funky stuff. As is with any program you are acustomed to, there is a learning curve.
Quincy wrote:Maybe you should get LaTeX then. Besides it's power in symbols and equations, it is far superior to Microsoft Word for page editing, formatting, referencing and a whole lot of other funky stuff. As is with any program you are acustomed to, there is a learning curve.
Sure, but LaTeX documentation clearly states that there you must first have TeX installed, and that's where I'm running into problems.
I'm using TeX. It's great. Get it here:
http://www.ctan.org/
Brandon9000,
Tex/Latex is the typical way to do this. There are some (probably non-free) packages that can integrate this into visual word-like editors.
WinEdt is the easiest (best) Latex editor to use in windows, and is free...or the trial never runs out, I don't remember which...but I never paid for it, never had to crack it, and I use it all the time.
stuh505 wrote:Brandon9000,
Tex/Latex is the typical way to do this. There are some (probably non-free) packages that can integrate this into visual word-like editors.
WinEdt is the easiest (best) Latex editor to use in windows, and is free...or the trial never runs out, I don't remember which...but I never paid for it, never had to crack it, and I use it all the time.
I'm using a LaTeX IDE called TeXnicCenter. It's pretty good and I'm getting used to it. I can't always do what I want, but nothing is perfect. It's free anyway.
You can type almost all types of equations with latex, I think.
Does anyone know how I might insert graphs of functions in my document? I don't know either how to generate the graphs on the PC or how to then put them into LaTex.
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