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Re: Which editor do you use for math articles

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg95374] Re: [mg95350] Which editor do you use for math articles
  • From: John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com>
  • Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:27:15 -0500 (EST)
  • Reply-to: jfultz at wolfram.com

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:09:29 -0500 (EST), TL wrote:
> Although Mathematica 7 is a very powerful peace of software as far as
> the computational part goes it turns out to be quite limited and
> unstable when it comes to word editing and processing, despite the
> claims in the help that it is almost as powerful as WinWord.
> For example it crashed multiple times on me while I was trying to setup
> the right fonts and sizes, as  a result I lost all my work several
> times, it also messed up my fonts, sizes, styles, settings for the
> equations, its undo is totally useless and I couldn't figure out how to
> format a text and a graphic in two or more columns and display them side
> by side in a notebook as well as how to control what goes on what page
> and while printing to PDF often it wouldn't print all pages, but just
> the first 2-3.
>
> All that said I'm wondering what program to use to write my work in, and
> I'm asking for advice - is WinWord any better when it comes to handling
> equations?
> Any other choices?
>
> What is the best way to export Mathematica 7 equations and graphics?

Well, I'm certainly very sorry to hear about your experience.  Yes, it is 
definitely true that Mathematica doesn't generally support multi-column page
layout (I say generally because people occasionally find hacky ways to attempt 
this, but they're not very robust), and that Mathematica is limited to a 
single-level undo.

As for the crashing/corruption problems you describe, I'm not sure that they are 
generally known, and I would encourage you to report any reproducible (or even 
semi-reproducible) examples you find to Wolfram Research Tech Support, or feel 
free to send them to me directly.  I can't guarantee prompt responses to direct 
emails, but I will deal with them.

I'd like to mention that Mathematica has a very convenient copy/paste facility 
which works with the Word 2007 Equation Editor (not with earlier versions of
Word) which you may find useful, and you can also explicitly copy math as TeX or 
MathML for use in any other application which supports these forms.

Sincerely,
 
John Fultz
jfultz at wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.





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