Mathematica student edition. Easily 50% more productive than TeX editing unless you are doing flash cards or something. Downside, costs ~$120. MathType is not much better than MS equation editor in terms of speed. Mathematica exports to TeX or html.
Of course there are dozens of equation editors, you could even use mathml, notepad, and mozilla.
Writing formulas
there many ways to write out forumals word should be able to do it but there many software out there that can do it and help you solve them too try mathcad (it should let you save to text/doc file).
A great alternative for Latex is TeXmacs. Writing equations is a breeze in TeXmacs. It combines the benefits of the structured documents and wysiwyg (or actually wysiwyw). Every function can be accessed from menu or written directly to the document similarly as you would do with latex. Moreover many functions are behind "smart" keyboard shortcuts, for example every greek letter (and more) can be inserted by writing a letter (e.g. pressing a) and pressing Tab (in our case this would produce alpha). There is also Latex export/import (altough they are not perfect).
Perhaps the most powerful feature is the ability to embed different sessions to your documents. Session could be for example session of matlab, mathematica, maple, python or almost any other.
EDIT: Oh, and if you test it out on Windows, I recommend that you install it under cygwin.
Perhaps the most powerful feature is the ability to embed different sessions to your documents. Session could be for example session of matlab, mathematica, maple, python or almost any other.
EDIT: Oh, and if you test it out on Windows, I recommend that you install it under cygwin.
TeXmacs is just an (old) try to give the TeX system a WYSIWYG-interface.
If you're not afraid of using Linux, you can try out Kile, which depends on KDE,
and is a quasi-standard for TeX-editing in GUI environments.
Kile is a newer approach to editing TeX, where with just one click you can see the output of your TeX 'code' immendiately. It has a large userbase, is well documented and therefore worth taking a look.
I'd recommend you to use TeX / LaTeX in any case and abandon MS Word; Word is suitable for doing office work, writing letters and short essays, business reports and sort of, but it turns out to be horribly unstable and error-prone when haveing to handle documents of 100 pages+; second, TeX can auto-generate title pages, separate chapters, index pages, appendices, picture references, text source references and a heck of a lot of other useful and required stuff in a scientific work, so a TeX-based word processing system has definately a strong advantage and should be the first choice for any scientific work.
Plus, TeX is able to output many different formats like HTML, PDF, PostScript and such - so, with one compile job, you can generate all different formats of distribution in one single step, auto-adjusting output to the given media type, paper size and stuff.
TeX / LaTeX definately needs some time for learning it, as it uses commands and tags instead of buttons, but the result is really worth it.
If you're not afraid of using Linux, you can try out Kile, which depends on KDE,
and is a quasi-standard for TeX-editing in GUI environments.
Kile is a newer approach to editing TeX, where with just one click you can see the output of your TeX 'code' immendiately. It has a large userbase, is well documented and therefore worth taking a look.
I'd recommend you to use TeX / LaTeX in any case and abandon MS Word; Word is suitable for doing office work, writing letters and short essays, business reports and sort of, but it turns out to be horribly unstable and error-prone when haveing to handle documents of 100 pages+; second, TeX can auto-generate title pages, separate chapters, index pages, appendices, picture references, text source references and a heck of a lot of other useful and required stuff in a scientific work, so a TeX-based word processing system has definately a strong advantage and should be the first choice for any scientific work.
Plus, TeX is able to output many different formats like HTML, PDF, PostScript and such - so, with one compile job, you can generate all different formats of distribution in one single step, auto-adjusting output to the given media type, paper size and stuff.
TeX / LaTeX definately needs some time for learning it, as it uses commands and tags instead of buttons, but the result is really worth it.
I heard a lot of people yell (not only here) that you should not use Word, and that LaTeX is tha 1337 r0X0r. (Or something to that affect [wink]).
My personal experience is that LaTeX-fans come up with arguments like: "LaTeX clearly separates layout and text". This, however, is true for Word's styles as well. "Yeah, but can you split up your thesis per chapter in Word and have consistent page numbering?". Well... yes, you can.
The fact that many people don't (know how to) use features, is not Word's fault (ok, maybe a little: some functions are quite well hidden).
True, LaTeX offers things Word can't, like building any formula you can think of and a sound bibliography (although OOo has some nice features for that). OTOH, Word has some unique features too.
Sure, using illustrations in Word can be kind of tedious (but try to exactly place an image where you want in LaTeX). But the user experience in LaTeX can be quite annoying too: have you ever tried typing a chapter on statistics in LaTeX and later notice you're missing whole sentences, because % starts a comment (so you have to type \% all the time?).
Bottom line, let people just use what they can work with most easy. You can suggest LaTeX, but could we stop saying things like "WORD IS EVIL!" when you just prefer something else?
</end of (somewhat) rant>
My personal experience is that LaTeX-fans come up with arguments like: "LaTeX clearly separates layout and text". This, however, is true for Word's styles as well. "Yeah, but can you split up your thesis per chapter in Word and have consistent page numbering?". Well... yes, you can.
The fact that many people don't (know how to) use features, is not Word's fault (ok, maybe a little: some functions are quite well hidden).
True, LaTeX offers things Word can't, like building any formula you can think of and a sound bibliography (although OOo has some nice features for that). OTOH, Word has some unique features too.
Sure, using illustrations in Word can be kind of tedious (but try to exactly place an image where you want in LaTeX). But the user experience in LaTeX can be quite annoying too: have you ever tried typing a chapter on statistics in LaTeX and later notice you're missing whole sentences, because % starts a comment (so you have to type \% all the time?).
Bottom line, let people just use what they can work with most easy. You can suggest LaTeX, but could we stop saying things like "WORD IS EVIL!" when you just prefer something else?
</end of (somewhat) rant>
I've written all technical stuff at university in \LaTeX as long as I has had a free decision. There are some problems w/ \LaTeX, of course, but not so much. I have furthur written some articles and a book chapter in Word. I hope I never have to do so again.
If, one the other hand, you have to do many computations aside, you actually could use Mathematica for both typesetting and integrated computation, as ironpoint has stated already.
IMHO \LaTeX produces the most professional document look. Math type setting in \LaTeX follows international standards (not the stuff Word has produced). The anachronistic feeling using \LaTeX (if you think so) could be overcome somewhat by using on-the-top tools like TeXemacs or InstantTeX and the like.
In the last its your own decision. If you are unfamiliar w/ \LaTeX and have to start writing immediately, you perhaps may get a timing problem, since \LaTeX needs some learning to be used well. In this point Word has an advantage (although you have to learn to use Word's advanced topics, too).
If, one the other hand, you have to do many computations aside, you actually could use Mathematica for both typesetting and integrated computation, as ironpoint has stated already.
IMHO \LaTeX produces the most professional document look. Math type setting in \LaTeX follows international standards (not the stuff Word has produced). The anachronistic feeling using \LaTeX (if you think so) could be overcome somewhat by using on-the-top tools like TeXemacs or InstantTeX and the like.
In the last its your own decision. If you are unfamiliar w/ \LaTeX and have to start writing immediately, you perhaps may get a timing problem, since \LaTeX needs some learning to be used well. In this point Word has an advantage (although you have to learn to use Word's advanced topics, too).
Im sorry, I didnt mean seriously Latex is "for professionals". I know one 18 year olds who masters it. What I meant was that Latex is abit unfriendly and needs some learning. With the MathType sort of programs you can start right away and get exactly what you want without reading manuals or any trial and error, which is why I use it and decalred it more worthy for amatuers.
for the purpose of this post-
amaturs = using equations intensly rarely (~once a month)
professionals = using equations intesnsly daily.
so to be even more precise:
To read/write Latex you need to read a manual and practice until you remember all the different commands. This is worthwhile if you do it at the begining of a mathematics degree and it will save time on the long run.
The upside of the WYSWYG interface type programs is that you can start working right away and get excellent results. If you have to type lots of complex equations only once per month I think its better than learning Latex.
The real downside is that clicking is slower than typing, but with the keyboard shortcuts (that you can learn them as you work) you get faster and faster until its almost as fast as working with latex.
both can be used by amatuers, but I believe the "professionals" will use only Latex sort of equation editing.
Iftah.
for the purpose of this post-
amaturs = using equations intensly rarely (~once a month)
professionals = using equations intesnsly daily.
so to be even more precise:
To read/write Latex you need to read a manual and practice until you remember all the different commands. This is worthwhile if you do it at the begining of a mathematics degree and it will save time on the long run.
The upside of the WYSWYG interface type programs is that you can start working right away and get excellent results. If you have to type lots of complex equations only once per month I think its better than learning Latex.
The real downside is that clicking is slower than typing, but with the keyboard shortcuts (that you can learn them as you work) you get faster and faster until its almost as fast as working with latex.
both can be used by amatuers, but I believe the "professionals" will use only Latex sort of equation editing.
Iftah.
I also support LaTeX for writing your formulas.
Never had this problem. I use a \frc{10} command to get the display I want (10%) or similarly \conf{5} for ±5%, and in turn I can use this command when I have tables of elements to get any format I want for my columns. This also allows me to alter the aspect of all percentages in my document.
Even if you had to use \% directly, any decent editor with syntax highlighting would display the rest of the line as a comment.
However, it's true that hunting for overfull hboxes can be pretty annoying too (still, you can resort to \sloppy and revert to a word-like ugly method of spacing).
Quote:Original post by DaBono
But the user experience in LaTeX can be quite annoying too: have you ever tried typing a chapter on statistics in LaTeX and later notice you're missing whole sentences, because % starts a comment (so you have to type \% all the time?).
Never had this problem. I use a \frc{10} command to get the display I want (10%) or similarly \conf{5} for ±5%, and in turn I can use this command when I have tables of elements to get any format I want for my columns. This also allows me to alter the aspect of all percentages in my document.
Even if you had to use \% directly, any decent editor with syntax highlighting would display the rest of the line as a comment.
However, it's true that hunting for overfull hboxes can be pretty annoying too (still, you can resort to \sloppy and revert to a word-like ugly method of spacing).
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