how to tell Mathematica to display x^-1 as x^-1 and not as 1/x
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg110725] how to tell Mathematica to display x^-1 as x^-1 and not as 1/x
- From: "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma at 12000.org>
- Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 08:19:23 -0400 (EDT)
- Reply-to: nma at 12000.org
Hello; When I type x^-1 Mathematica replies 1/x Is there a way to tell Mathematica to *display* terms with negative powers as x^-n and not as 1/x^n ? (i.e keep the term just like it would appear on paper). Another example, suppose I type expr = a*x^-2 + b *x^-1 + The reason I want to do this, is just for display purposes. When I print the expression on the screen, I'd like it to look like x^-1 and not like 1/x (to better match how the expression look like in the textbook) I am trying to avoid having to convert everything to a string, and force the form to the way I want. I tried Hold functions, and TraditionalForm, but can't get it to print as I want. I am hoping there is an easy trick to do this? thanks --Nasser