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Re: Re: Re: Re: typesetting fractions

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg45726] Re: [mg45697] Re: [mg45644] Re: [mg45590] Re: [mg45555] typesetting fractions
• From: Selwyn Hollis <sh2.7183 at misspelled.erthlink.net>
• Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 03:37:28 -0500 (EST)
• References: <200401201008.FAA27408@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

On Jan 20, 2004, at 5:08 AM, John Fultz wrote:

> I didn't reply to this thread earlier because I figured one of the 
> usual
> experts would pick it up and run with it, but it appears not.  By 
> reading
> Selwyn's answer, I think he knows how to do this but decided to vent 
> about
> the method rather than explain it.

What, me vent? I could show you venting, but I won't.

The real issue here is why this design flaw has persisted from version 
3.0 to version 5.0. It is clearly an example of sheer corner-cutting. 
There is no typographical rationale whatsoever for treating numerators 
and denominators of fractions the same way as subscripts and 
superscripts.

For example, what if I want to have ScriptSizeMultipliers->1 in a 
fraction that contains subexpressions with superscripts? Then the 
superscripts are the same size as the bases to which they are attached, 
and the whole thing looks silly -- thus I have go in and do a lot of 
meticulous tweaking.

Again, I could be missing something and have wasted countless hours in 
trying to make many hundreds of pages worthy of publication. But maybe 
it's my own fault for dreaming that I could approach TeX-like quality 
with Mathematica.

-----
Selwyn Hollis
http://www.math.armstrong.edu/faculty/hollis
(edit reply-to to reply)



> In the Option Inspector is an option called ScriptSizeMultipliers.  
> This,
> combined with the ScriptMinSize, determines sizing for fractions and
> scripts (sorry, Selwyn).  The easiest way to do what Murray and Sabit 
> want
> is to set the ScriptSizeMultipliers option to 1.  This could be set at 
> the
> notebook or global level, as you feel appropriate, or wrapped 
> individually
> around fractions if you don't want sub/superscripts to pick up the 
> option
> value.
>
> To answer Sabit's second question, select the bracket of the cell you'd
> like to change, and use the Option Inspector to set the 
> SingleLetterItalics
> option to False at the selection scope.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> John Fultz
> jfultz at wolfram.com
> User Interface Group
> Wolfram Research, Inc.
>
>
> On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:58:02 -0500 (EST), Murray Eisenberg wrote:
>> I quite agree that this is an annoyance with Mahematica's typsetting 
>> of
>> mathematics.
>>
>> An underlying difficulty is that there is no separate notion of 
>> "display
>> math" -- mathematical expressions displayed on separate lines -- as
>> opposed to math within normal paragraphs of text.  This may be an
>> unfortunate front-end design limitation.
>>
>> The problem is reminiscent of the same problem in LaTeX, where 
>> in-line,
>> built-up fractions (and other constructs) have their components small.
>> But in LaTeX, there is an option (which one needs to apply to each
>> instance) to make such in-line math "displaystyle", which enlarges the
>> components to the same large size as if they were in a display.
>>
>> I devoutly wish there were such a capability in Mathematica -- 
>> whether a
>> per-instance option as with LaTeX, or a global option for a notebook.
>>
>> Selwyn Hollis wrote:
>>
>>> My understanding is that the size of fractions is determined by the
>>> same option that determines the size of subscripts and superscripts,
>>> which is highly unfortunate. I could be wrong about this; if so I'd
>>> love to find out. I find it a major pain in the neck always to have 
>>> to
>>> increase the size of fractions manually. Maybe this is an improvement
>>> we can hope for in version 6.0.
>>>
>>> -----
>>> Selwyn Hollis
>>> http://www.math.armstrong.edu/faculty/hollis
>>> (edit reply-to to reply)
>>>
>>> On Jan 14, 2004, at 1:26 AM, sabit wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am trying to do some typesetting with mathematica. I noticed that
>>>> in
>>>> some styles fractions are set in reduced point size. What is the
>>>> option that would fix this? I want both denominator and the 
>>>> numerator
>>>> set in the same size as the text.
>>>>
>>>> Also I have the single letter italic enabled for cells where I have
>>>> the equations but in the cells where there is a lot of text I don't
>>>> want this option. Now I copy and paste a previous cell and use it as
>>>> new cell but I am sure there is a better way, probably with styles.
>>>> Wolfram site lists two documents about typesetting but they are not
>>>> available to download. Does anyone know a good reference for
>>>> tpesetting with mathematica?
>
>
>

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: typesetting fractions
    • From: Garry Helzer <gah@math.umd.edu>

• References:
  • Re: Re: Re: typesetting fractions
    • From: John Fultz <jfultz@wolfram.com>