posted
Having some fractions issues. I’m not sure how this is working with the auto replace, but the fractions don’t seem to be consistent. Put in 1/3 and 1/5 and it doesn’t convert it smaller. But ½ ¼ ¾ all do. Anyone know how to get all the fractions to go small?
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
You can't. 1/2, 1/4, and 3/4 are all single characters (really, single glyphs) in the font, that's why they "go small". Word recognizes that what you're typing corresponds to one of them, then substitutes that glyph instead of the individual characters you typed, sort of like how ligatures work.
Without those precreated versions, the fractions won't "go small" because there's nothing to tell Word how they should look when small.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
There are special characters for 1/2, 1/4 and 3/4 and automatic conversion rules for them. As far as I know you can't make any other fractions look like that.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I wanted to type out some simple algebraic equations once...and I found that MS Word couldn't handle it. MS has an add-in you can buy for Much Money to do algebraic equations. I finally used underline and two lines.
I'd suggest that you turn off the auto replace if you want consistency. Go for big.
posted
Wow… how strange. Would have thought that would be an easy one to convert….. Guess I understand how they’re doing it. Just never realized this and am a bit stumped. Thanks.
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The way to do fancy equations is to use LaTeX to generate them, then insert the graphic in word . Free, and works better than MS's equation editor (though it does have more of a learning curve).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Fugu's oblique mention of the Equation Editor is your solution, by the way. If you're going to type equations into Word -- or any Office product -- that's the way to do it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
So where can one get this Free LaTex Equation Editor? I’m not finding it on download.com and seems to be charged other places.
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The Equation Editor in Word will work perfectly well - no need to use LaTeX.
I got fast enough with it that I could take notes in it in statistics class. OK, it was statistics for law students, but I could still type formulas in real time.
Go to the Insert menu, choose Object, and then select Microsoft Equation from the list. If you're going to be doing this a lot, you can add a toolbar button for the equation editor and give it a shortcut key.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
No, no, LaTeX is a typesetting system specifically developed for use with equations, among other things. One can type equations at full typing speed once you know how it works (you have to type in a simple markup, which is then processed to create postscript or pdf).
For simple equations, word's equation editor is certainly sufficient. For complex ones, or lots being entered quickly, and certain corner cases (which may or may not come up, depending on what sort of equations you're entering), its not. You can find lots of stuff on it through google: http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=latex&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 (just add "tutorial" and you'll get beginner info), and the windows version is here: http://www.miktex.org/Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Fugu just wants to expose more people to his misery. LaTeX is more powerful, but it's also a complete pain in the butt. Instead of learning what's essentially a markup language for those rare times when you need to type an equation, just use the Equation Editor built into Microsoft Office.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Dang Dag, I think that might work for this job. It's for a paper that has some fractions in it, so other stuff could be overkill. Thank you all very much.
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
s'not a complete pain in the butt, its just a mildly different environment
High learning curve doesn't mean that once you've learned it its not a breeze .
Of course if you just have a rare equation you don't need LaTeX, as I said from the beginning "The way to do fancy equations . . ."
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I use equation editor all the time (and I have placed a button for it on the toolbar). I find it perfectly easy to do, and I have yet to have a problem with it. (I'm a math teacher, by the way; I'm not sure what math application you would find it insufficient for.) Frankly, I recommend the free Equation Editor that comes with MS Word over MathType, which is the version Katarain was apparently referring to. I have a colleague who swears by MathType, but I found it to be much buggier (though admittedly more comprehensive) than the free version. (And once you download MathType, it is extremely difficult to ever get Equation Editor back again.)
-o-
I had to use TeX and LaTex when I worked at ORNL, because this was all they used for document preparation. Granted, it's been a dozen years, and they may have come a long way, but . . . *ugh* I would not recommend that particular form of masochism.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Your little dog was a metaphor and not meant literally
The equation editor is insufficient for many complex math equations such as one runs into in higher level math courses.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Creating just the full equation (with expressions for the mean and variances written out) for the correlation of two random variables takes me a few minutes in equation editor; I can do it in well under a minute using LaTeX.
And that's a relatively simple equation.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I think 1/3 might be in your character map.
Go to Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Character Map. You probably didn't need that, but I didn't know it existed until about a year ago, so I didn't want to take it for granted that you did.
Edit: It is, along with 2/3, 1/8, 3/8, 5/8, and 7/8.
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Now that you've found ways to do fractions and other such things, go and turn off autoformatting. It's of the devil.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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quote: Instead of learning what's essentially a markup language for those rare times when you need to type an equation, just use the Equation Editor built into Microsoft Office.
Or download/buy MathType. I use a cracked version, and it's far better than EE. You don't have to crack it, you have a "lite" version of it too.
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Open Office has a Math tool built into it that I find similar but superior to MathType. You could do much worse than downloading it and giving it a try. I also love the word auto-completion.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Then leave it on. But I hate the rest of autoformatting. The automatic bulleted or numbered lists, where it's a pain in the neck to change the formatting of the numbers because you can't "reach" them the normal way. I hate having things I typed automatically replaced by other things without my okay (like teh for the). And I hate not being able to type "Dear ___,<enter>" without that stupid paper clip coming up.
It is possible to pick and choose what to leave on. I do prefer, for instance, to have my straight quotes replaced with smart quotes.
Now, autocomplete in MS Excel is a bigger problem, because if you type something that is less than the full length of some previously used string, and then hit enter, you might never realize that Excel has replaced it with something else. For instance, a long time ago, I use to use Excel with Word to send individualized form letters to my students' parents at various points throughout the year, telling them how their children were performing in my class. I would take my existing grade spreadsheet, and add columns for gender specific pronouns, parental information as I knew it (i.e., Mr. and Mrs. Smith versus Ms. Brown) and a letter grade rather than a number. (Yes, it's possible to use a series of IF statements in a formula to replace the need for this, but frankly this seemed like a bigger pain in the neck. So I would go down the column, typing, say, B+, C-, A, B, C, C+, etc. However, if I accidentally had autocomplete on, that B would magically turn into a B+, and that C would become a C-. Gah!
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
I think that's the single biggest flaw with all Microsoft products: they think they're smarter than you, and it's usually impossible to convince them otherwise.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
"Poor Clippy" my butt. That paperclip is one of the most obnoxious and insidious creations ever and it deserves to be hated. It deserves to die a slow, painful death. I wonder what made them think it was a good idea in the first place.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: "Poor Clippy" my butt. That paperclip is one of the most obnoxious and insidious creations ever and it deserves to be hated. It deserves to die a slow, painful death. I wonder what made them think it was a good idea in the first place.
Someone thought it was cute and clever.
They should be staked out in the middle of the Sahara, allowed to almost die, then be revived. This process should be repeated until they repent.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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rivka, it's the same person that thought Microsoft Bob was a good idea. 'No really, they'll like it this time, I swear!'
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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It was Microsoft's attempt to make computers "friendly" by using a "home" metaphor for every action. You sat at a desk to access your rolodex, your phone, and your calendar; you could head into the kitchen for recipes; and so on. It also featured MS's first attempts at animated "agents" who would offer to assist you with common tasks -- basically a cuter and pushier form of wizard. It was completely useless, in that it was too buggy for the new user and too limited and, well, pushy for the advanced user.
The agent idea got recycled into later versions of Microsoft Office, however, and really wasn't that bad of a concept; people were able to select what kind of animation, if any, they wanted, and could choose when the agent would intervene and/or offer help. Most "serious" users hated the fact that the agent was turned on by default, especially since older machines had real trouble running the animations -- which turned every attempt to consult the Help files (which are actually quite good) into a painful exercise in waiting for a paperclip to unroll itself. I put "serious" in quotes because real serious users just clicked the box to turn off the agent and never worried about it again.
Ironically, this agent technology is still around, and has even been incorporated into Windows Media Player. It's a lot slicker than it used to be, and it's very easy to write elaborate scripts to animate the agents and put words in their mouths. Sadly, people are now so turned off by the thought that most companies don't take advantage of this -- and the ones that do, like BonziBuddy (whose purple gorilla runs on Microsoft Agent), tend to be slightly sleazy attempts to exploit the new user.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Coolest use of the agent thing was, combined with the text to speech engine, an electronic DJ for use with Winamp.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Tom, the problem was that with the letter thing specifically, Clippy could not be turned off. I think this has changed now, but there was a version for MS Word where, even if you had clippy off, he would come back if you typed "Dear ___,<enter>."
It got to where, I kid you not, I would write the text of the letter first, insert a couple of blank lines, and then type the salutation last, without ever hitting return after that line.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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Ah. *grin* The infamous Letter Wizard. Yeah, when they wrote the Letter Wizard for Office '97, even if you turned off the agent for all other purposes, he still appeared when you typed "Dear ____." No matter what.
posted
That blog entry is oozing with precisely the attitude JonBoy described. I prefer to set up my own indents and tab stops, and I hardly think that's a "broken" way of writing a letter.
Considering that their way of doing things was often wrong (look at the grammar checker for several thousand excellent examples) you can see why they raise such ire.
(Kind of like the automatic numbered lists. Didn't work so well when you were trying to write a vocabulary quiz. Luckily, those could at least be turned off.)
But then, I really hated wizards in general when they first came out. Luckily, they have gotten a lot less pushy lately.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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quote: I prefer to set up my own indents and tab stops, and I hardly think that's a "broken" way of writing a letter.
Well, no, it is. Because the GOOD way to do this is to do it ONCE, save a template, and then never, ever, have to do it again. But MS estimates that only 10% of users have ever created a template for any reason, mainly because they don't realize how useful they are and how easy they are to create.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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. Free, and works better than MS's equation editor (though it does have more of a learning curve).
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If you're going to type equations into Word -- or any Office product -- that's the way to do it.
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