Replies

Sorry for the very tardy reply to your post from nearly 3 months ago, but I figure even if you have discovered the answer by now, others reading this thread may have the same question. The difference is in how the summation is situated. If it’s in an “inline” equation (one that shares a line with other text), the summation limits will be in the sub/superscript position, as you show in the “incorrect” section of your screen shot. If it’s in a “display” equation (where the equation is the only thing on the line), limits will be above and below. You probably already know you can switch an equation from inline to display, or vice versa, but doing so will also move the limits on a summation. I don’t know of a way around that.

43119-inline_summation

…will result in the 2nd summation here:

43120-display_summation

If you construct it as a display equation, the moment you add anything else to the line, Word will switch it to inline. (BTW, the “old” equation editor is still in Word — even Word 2016. You can find it in the Text group of the Insert tab. You use “Insert Object” just like the old days.)

Thanks for the suggestion. It sure seems like that would solve my problem, but as it turns out I had forgotten that I had already done that. In fact, I had Chinese already blocked, as well as several other languages, and those emails are still getting through. I changed my Junk settings on the Options tab, so we’ll see if that has any effect.

There’s not a way to change the font, no. However, you may not realize there are actually 2 equation editors in Word 2007 (and Office 2010). “Microsoft Equation 3” is still available if you go to the Insert tab and click on Object, then choose Microsoft Equation 3.0 from the list. If you use that equation editor, you’ll have no problem with the fractions resizing when you don’t want them to, and you can set the font to anything you want. BUT, it’s important that you leave the L.C. Greek, U.C. Greek, and Symbol styles set to Symbol font.

I contacted Design Science and they said that at present they cannot get MathType to work adequately with Excel.

Yes, thanks for contacting us. Since others may have the same question, and may wonder what the answer is, I’ll include it here: “Sadly, you will not see any tab or Ribbon for MathType in Excel. You can still use MathType with Excel from the Insert > Object command. But. The equation object will not occupy a cell. Rather, it will be a floating object that can be dragged around at will. Right now this is the best we can do.”

To add to that, even if you do insert it as a floating object, it can’t be used for computation in Excel. Even with those limitations though, I’ve talked with teachers who use Excel for their math exams. I don’t think I’d do that, but they said they could move questions around (in order to make multiple versions) easier in Excel than in Word.

Bob Mathews
Design Science

[Sorry; I realized after the fact that this is an old thread. In my defense though, I’m not the one who revived it. . Still, I stand by my advice.]

You don’t specify which equation editor you’re using. In Word 2010 (as was the case in Word 2007, as well as in Word 2011 on the Mac), there are 2. There’s the venerable “Microsoft Equation 3.0”, as well as the new “OMML” equation editor. (OMML = Office Math Markup Language). There are known problems printing OMML equations — both to physical printers and to PDF. There aren’t any known problems printing MSE3 equations. Two recommendations… One, if you just really like the way the OMML editor works, and are determined to make it work, do a Google search to see what the fixes or workarounds are. (I don’t know what they are, or I’d save you the trouble and just tell you.) Two, you can use the MSE3 by going to the Insert tab, and in the Text group, click Object. If you’ve used it before in previous versions of Word, the rest is the same as before. If you use OMML, I don’t recommend saving the document in “compatibility format”, because the equations will turn into images, as aj15phelps pointed out, but they’re low-quality images that don’t print very well.

Actually I’m not aware of any higher-level mathematics notation that MathType can’t handle. Of course, you can’t compare MathType and Mathematica (not that you were suggesting we do that), because their purpose is totally different.

Besides the AMS fonts, the STIX Fonts is a collection of 23 OpenType fonts intended for math typesetting, and available free of charge.

Excellent answer, Ron. In fact, the biggest problem we see with Equation Editor (aka “Microsoft Equation 3.0”) is when people set the font for the Greek and “Symbol” styles to be something other than Symbol font. There are other fonts besides Symbol that will work for these 3 styles, but most fonts won’t work, so it’s safest to just leave it set to Symbol.

Bob Mathews
Design Science

It could be that someone clicked the X in the upper right of Equation Editor’s toolbar. To get it back, click Toolbar in the View menu.

In 2010, I was able to use Insert | Equation and change the color of just the radical.

28049-equation

Yes, of course you can do that. That’s not what the original question was though — “mcoleman” asked specifically about using “Equation Editor 3.1”, and you cannot change the color in EE3.1.

No, but MathType gives you that capability. You can even use more than one color in an equation, like you might want to do if you want to focus attention on part of an equation. Like this…

Considering the quadratic formula, the quantity in red is called the discriminant:

28045-Eqn4

By evaluating the discriminant, we can determine the number of roots of a quadratic function.

But you can’t do that with Microsoft Equation 3.1.

Hi Bob,

My typesetter has confirmed the spec they are using, but says they’re still having to re-key:
I’m attaching a snippet cut from one such manuscript. Can you confirm whether MathType really can convert these images back to editable equations?[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]

In this document, no. I can’t tell at what point those equations became pictures, but they’ve become non-editable. Here’s a way to tell if MathType can convert picture equations…

Open the .doc file in Word 2007 or Word 2010, then save it as a .docx file. If the equations are now editable in the OMML equation editor (i.e., the “new one” in Word), then MathType is able to convert the equation pictures into MathType equations. If the equations are so far gone that Word can’t edit them, then neither will MathType be able to edit them.

BTW, this won’t be possible with MathType 6.0 anyway; it requires MathType 6.5 or later.

@msmaerz, thanks for the helpful information to @DTW’s question. Your answers were right on the mark. Let me add one more piece of the puzzle though, which I think will help out @DTW and put their group on their merry way.

It doesn’t matter if the authors use Word 2007/Word 2010, nor does it matter which equation authoring tool they use — “new” equation editor, Microsoft Equation 3, or MathType. They can save the document, then the editors open it up in Word 2003. As @DTW described, all the “OMML” equations (that’s the technical term for equations created by Word’s “new” equation editor) will be displaying as crappy-looking images. No problem. @DTW, if you have MathType installed on your machine that’s running Word 2003, you have the Convert Equations command in Word’s MathType menu. Set the options as @msmaerz described earlier (except “Prompt for each equation” is optional) and run the command. All those crappy-looking equation pictures should be converted to nice-looking MathType equations.

If you have more problems, feel free to contact our Technical Support staff at support at dessci.com or continue the thread here — your choice.

Bob Mathews
Design Science

I have a dual monitor setup. (Windows XP, Office 2003) When I use the Equation Editor in the secondary monitor and click on any of the icons (say to insert a fraction), the options always show up in the primary window. If I use it in the primary window, they appear inside the program as they should. Any ideas on how to fix this?

You might try setting Equation Editor to open in a separate window. To do that, follow the steps in Tip 3 here: http://www.dessci.com/en/products/ee/ee_tips.htm#open_mode

Bob

It seems all the shortcuts you mention on the Q key are already set up in my installation of MathType v5.2a.

That could be because someone at the university may have added the shortcuts manually (but it would indeed be quite a coincidence if they were the same ones we’ve added). Those shortcuts were added into MathType’s integration to Word with MathType 6.5 though. If they’re working for you, great.

Bob

I should also make the point that installing MathType creates its own keyboard shortcuts in Word itself. When I realised, I though maybe I should include those in the MathType guide. Any thoughts?

Quite right. We added some new shortcuts with MathType 6.5 that let you…

[*]Insert display equation (Alt+Q)[*]Insert right-numbered equation (Alt+Shift+Q)[*]Insert left-numbered equation (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Q)[*]Open Math Input Panel [Windows 7 only] (Ctrl+Shift+M)[*]Toggle MathType/TeX (Alt+)[*]Edit equation in-place in the document [as opposed to in a separate MathType window] (Alt+E)[*]Open equation for editing in a separate MathType window (Alt+O)

These supplement the one that already existed:

[*]Insert inline equation (Ctrl+Alt+Q)