Mathematics Typesetting (1 Viewer)

[vafa]

If you would like to typeset mathematics (mathematics typesetting itself +diagrams), then I would like to share my experience with you.


For mathematical typesetting, I use

and mates.

Note:

is free.
1- Download a

ditribution which is either MiKTeX or TeXLive for windows. (In my opinion MiKTeX is the best because you can update it any time easilly)

you can get the latest version (MiKTeX 2.7 beta 5, the actual MiKTeX 2.7 realeases in 12th of December) from www.miktex.org


you can get the latest version of TeXLive from http://www.tug.org/texlive/

2- You also need editors

TeXnicCenter: free, obtain from www.toolscenter.org

Winedt: Shareware, but it is recommended and is the editor myself use.
You can obtain it from http://www.winedt.com/

There are also other editors like Winshell, LPD, LaTeX editor and many others. (You can search them in any search engine)

Fore more information, you can look at www.tug.org (TeX Users Group)

Most of the Mathematicians use LaTeX for typesetting their papers.


For diagrams, you need to learn mainly pstricks and xy-pic.

But there is a program that you can make your diagrams with it and it gives you the LaTeX code. It is called LaTeXPiX and you can get it from http://home.tiscali.nl/nickvanbeurden/latexpix.htm

 

[Captain Gh3y]

I have a uni course worth of notes on how to type TeX code if anyone wants :|

 

[davidbarnes]

I have a uni course worth of notes on how to type TeX code if anyone wants :|

Are these in electronic form?

 

[vafa]

Yeah that is good.

In addition, If you really would like to use LaTeX professionally, I would recommend the following textbooks (since I have all of them):

1- Guide To LaTeX by Helmut Kopka and Patrick W.Daly

2- The LaTeX companion by Frank Mittelbach and Michel Goossens

3- The LaTeX graphics Companion by Michel Goossens, Frank Mittlebach, Sebastian Rahtz, Denis Roegel, Herbert Vob

4- The Latex Web Companion by Michel Gossens and Sebastian Rahtz

You can all these textbooks from www.informit.com

Also there are many others free tutorial (very basics) which you can download (PDF) by seraching in any search engine.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Are these in electronic form?

Yeah they're PDFs

 

[buchanan]

I use <a href="http://www.pctex.com">PCTeX</a> for PC and <a href="http://www.tug.org/mactex">MacTeX</a> for Mac.

 

[vafa]

PCTeX is the commercial version of LaTeX, nothing better, it just gives you distribution and Editor in one place. MacTeX is the LaTeX distribution for Mac computers. and as far as I know most of the Linux operating systems comes with a version of LaTeX which is called teTeX. but teTeX is now out of date (its lates version realeased in 2006 and its author announced that he is not going to continue the project any more) and instead for the 2008, TeXLive will be the system in linux. You can install TeXLive in any platform.

as I said before MiKTeX is the best distribution because you can update it anytime you want.

Buchanan was the first one who opened the doors of LaTeX to me.

 

[vafa]

If anybody is looking for an easy installation of LaTeX, then I would recommend ProTeXt (it was the one that I started my work with) and you can download it from http://www.tug.org/protext/

 

[Dumsum]

If your ISP's FTP server mirrors CTAN, you can get the various TeX distros from there, and it won't count to your download quota (ProTeXt is like 500MB).

your-isps-ftp-server/pub/CTAN/systems

 

[me121]

One question, do any of these LATEX editors support graphical creation of formula. For example can I click the fraction button and see a fraction and edit it in graphical format? or can i only edit in the markup language.

 

[buchanan]

I prefer markup language. But if you want wysiwyw, try <a href="http://www.texmacs.org">texmacs</a>.

 

[vafa]

One question, do any of these LATEX editors support graphical creation of formula. For example can I click the fraction button and see a fraction and edit it in graphical format? or can i only edit in the markup language.

You are looking for the editor which is called lyx and you can download it from www.lyx.org. lyx is WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean) and the others are WYSINWYG (what you see is not what you get) and as buchanan said they are markup language. For lyx, you do not need to know any LaTeX code but for the others, you need to know your LaTeX code. I also prefer LaTeX code but lyx gives you the oprtunity to have LaTeX coding as well. I am currently working in lyx project and I am in the charge of the persian and arabic typesetting of it. But make sure before downloading lyx, you have a LateX distribution installed on your computer, however during the installation process, it asks you if you have not already installed a LaTeX distribution on your computer. Lyx is free and recently there has been something similar to lyx which is called scientific author. unfortunately it is shareware. you can find it at http://tug.ctan.org/pkg/scientificauthor

 

[vafa]

Something interesting:

Contributors always create something new to LaTeX in the form of a package, this information and new packages can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/ctan-ann@dante.de/

 

[vafa]

An Important news:

As you know LaTeX2e is developing to get to LaTeX3. and so you may notice that some of the LaTeX2e commands do not work correctly (some of these may work but they will not work in near future) so you are encouraged to forget the old commands and learn the news one. The file I have attached helps you in this matter.


View attachment 15825

 

[buchanan]

You are looking for the editor which is called lyx...

Another wysiwyg LaTeX editor is <a href="http://www.bakomatex.com">BaKoMa</a>. But I generally discourage wysiwyg.

It's better to use code. It gives you more control.

There are also several online latex renderers which you can use to try a bit of code before you go ahead with a full installation. They also allow you to embed maths into html. For example <a href="http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/LaTeX/AoPS_L_TeXer.php">TeXer</a>

If I type \int_a^bx^2\,dx=(b^3-a^3)/3 in the box I get

 

[A High Way Man]

There's also MathBin.net

Word 2008 does a good job at type setting. It's not LaTeX but.

 

[vafa]

LaTeX>Word

 

[buchanan]

That's right. I keep telling teachers that but they won't listen.

I think people who type maths in Word can be safely ignored. Unfortunately that includes MANSW and the Board of Studies.

 

[vafa]

first of all, I bleive it is frustrating to typeset a line of mathematics with word. secondly word is designed for uneducated people. Mathematicians are well known by the fact that they can leran anything new in the shortest time and they have the ability to solve complex and complicated situations. If you look at all mathematics journals or any science journal or even arxiv, non of them accepts word, all require authors to typeset their papers in LaTeX. I believe, word will disappear in a few years as LaTeX becomes more powerful as it is now.

 

[darkliight]

Word (or similar) will never die at the hands of latex, because you'll always need to think a little bit to use latex. Lots of people aren't into that, and will be content with knowing how to insert a table and image into a word processing document.