reliable, easy TeX+Mathematica
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg18591] reliable, easy TeX+Mathematica
- From: sidles at u.washington.edu (John A. Sidles)
- Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 01:01:25 -0400
- Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
This note is mainly for students in math, physics, and engineering.
Let's say you like using Mathematica for symbol manipulation,
and yet you have noticed that your colleagues, the journals,
and textbooks mainly use TeX for top-quality typesetting.
You want to use them together, but you are a student without
a whole lot of resources ... what do you do?
Here is solution that is quick, easy, reliable, professional-
quality, and *free*, and which I particularly commend to students:
(1) Open (a) Mathematica, (b) TeX, and (c) a (paper) lab notebook.
(I use the public-domain OzTeX program --- works great!)
(2) In your lab notebook, outline your solution strategy.
Because if you can't at least outline your solution strategy
on paper, there's not much chance that Mathematica (or any
other program) will be able to help you.
(3) In Mathematica, carry through the algebra of your
solution strategy -- this is fun and easy *iff* you
have a good solution strategy clearly in mind.
(4) In AMS-LaTeX, write your article, book, or report
--> Pasting results from Mathematica into TeX
using //TeXForm (they generally require a little bit of
cleaning up, but at least the signs and factors of two are
guaranteed correct)
--> Pasting results from TeX into Mathematica
**** this is the trick ****
I just capture the TeX'd equations directly from the screen
into the paste buffer, then paste them directly into
Mathematica! No muss, no fuss, never fails, and the
typography is perfect.
(5) Then printout the TeX and Mathematica & paste them
back into your notebook
The end result is that your paper notebook, your Mathematica
notebook, and your TeX'd final article are perfectly synched,
and you enjoy the best of all three worlds.
For students, the chief advantage of this strategy is that
the results are of absolutely the highest quality ---
there is no better symbol manipulation environment than
Mathematica, and no better typesetting environment that TeX.
By the way, I also paste from TeX into LabView with great
success -- it is a wonderful way to document your LabView vi's.
See, e.g.,
ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/sidles/ ...
MRFMLabViewVis/Documentation.pdf
Good luck to students ... JAS