Re: typesetting fractions
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg45776] Re: typesetting fractions
- From: "Steve Luttrell" <steve1 at _removemefirst_luttrell.org.uk>
- Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 03:29:04 -0500 (EST)
- References: <200401201008.FAA27408@smc.vnet.net> <200401220837.DAA17457@smc.vnet.net> <buqmch$raa$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
" Indications are that someone at WRI wants to develop Mathematica into
a
first rate technical publishing tool. It should be explained to them
that this is just a waste of time and talent if the use of the tool
is to be such a jealously guarded secret."
I couldn't agree more. I also use Mathematica for all my technical
authoring. To ease the pain I think of the process of discovering how to do
"clever" authoring as an intellectual game, where I know in advance that the
solution to any authoring problem will be logical and obvious with
hindsight.
Steve Luttrell
"Garry Helzer" <gah at math.umd.edu> wrote in message
news:buqmch$raa$1 at smc.vnet.net...
> Since Selwyn has fallen down in the venting department I will offer a
> few remarks.
>
> For the last few years I have used Mathematica exclusively for
> technical writing, mostly because it gives me better control over
> figure placement and keeps everything in a single file. That said, it
> is nonetheless an aggravating experience in many ways. The
> subscript/quotient font size problem is a daily irritation. Here's my
> question. TeX does an excellent job in this regard. TeX has been around
> since the '60s and is open source. Why doesn't someone at WRI just look
> at how TeX does it and incorporate the rules? Why reinvent the
> wheel especially if the wheels you produce in house always seem to have
> corners on the rim?
>
> A personal bugaboo of mine is the spelling checker. I don't have
> problems with the spelling checker in any other software, just
> Mathematica. Ever since 3.0 I have been trying to teach it that
> bivector is a word. No luck. It just keeps telling me to try bevatron
> instead. I tell it to learn the word, it puts it in some user defined
> dictionary, and then ignores it.
>
> I keep a copy of the Summer-Fall 1999 issue of Mathematica in Education
> and Research in a file cabinet just so I can look up how to change an
> unmatched bracket from pink to black whenever I want to define a
> multiline function (p. 87).
>
> Indications are that someone at WRI wants to develop Mathematica into a
> first rate technical publishing tool. It should be explained to them
> that this is just a waste of time and talent if the use of the tool
> is to be such a jealously guarded secret.
>
> If Mathematica is to have more than marginal use as a technical
> publication system WRI needs to produce, in house or outhouse, a
> Mathematica equivalent of The Joy of TeX. Cursory documentation and
> scattered hints in journals will not do it.
>
> On Jan 22, 2004, at 3:37 AM, Selwyn Hollis wote:
>
> > 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?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> Garry Helzer
> Department of Mathematics
> University of Maryland
> College Park, MD 20742
> 301-405-5176
> gah at math.umd.edu
>
>
- References:
- Re: Re: Re: typesetting fractions
- From: John Fultz <jfultz@wolfram.com>
- Re: Re: Re: Re: typesetting fractions
- From: Selwyn Hollis <sh2.7183@misspelled.erthlink.net>
- Re: Re: Re: typesetting fractions