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My name is Jennifer Michelstein, and I'm a Program Manager on the Word team. I mainly work on academic features, like bibliographies and citations (see Joe Friend's blog) and equations.
In Word 2007, we took a ground-up approach to creating a new set of tools for editing and displaying equations. Here's a brief highlight of what's cool about the new Equation Builder:
Writing the equation feature was a huge undertaking. We had a highly talented group of individuals contributing, including Murray Sargent, who has written about the inner workings of the feature here.
In this blog entry, I'll introduce you to our two methods of equation input (three, if you include the Equations gallery). In future entries, I'll talk about other components of the feature, including typography, layout, breaking, alignment, and MathML.
We've divided into two categories the types of elements that can be inserted in equations: symbols and structures. Symbols are sorted into categories by subject area, and within each category by frequency of use. (fun fact: in a recent presentation to equation writers, categorization by subject area instead of Unicode value was one of the most heavily applauded items)
Each category of structures is a dropdown gallery containing variants of that type. For example, the integral gallery contains different types of integrals (regular, surface, contour, and volume) with limits positioned in different locations.
Linear Format, a keyboard-based syntax, is a new method of entering equations in Word. Linear Format uses a TeX-like notation for some mathematical objects and symbols, and the same mathematical syntax you'd see in a linear text entry field in simple cases (for example, a^2 for the superscript , or (a+b)/(b+c) for the fraction ).
It's important to note that there are two separate processes involved in converting strings to Professional format. The first, Math AutoCorrect, converts strings to symbols or groups of characters. Here's a quick demo of Math AutoCorrect.
The second is Formula AutoBuildup. Formula AutoBuildup takes linear strings such as a^2 or ∫_0^1 and converts them to Professional form. Rather than explain how Linear Format works, I'll show you some quick examples of how to write equations in Linear Format, and how it compares in speed to UI-based entry: first, with exponents and fractions, and then with an integral.
I encourage the equation writers out there to play with Linear Format. Since our Help topics on equations have not been posted yet, you may want some assistance learning fluency in Linear Format. Let me know what equations or structures about which you have questions, and I'll post video demos. You can read more about Linear Format and Formula AutoBuildup here.
When we watched users on site visits writing equations, we saw many people open old documents, copy equations, and paste them into their new document. Even if the equations were slightly different, finding these equations and repurposing them often saved time and effort. With that in mind, we used the Building Blocks framework to create a gallery of saved equations. Jon talked about Building Blocks for Cover Pages, Headers, and Footers in this post, and we'll write more about the Building Blocks framework in future posts. Here's a quick demo on inserting a saved equation from the gallery. You can easily save your own equations to the gallery, as is true for all Building Blocks.
Comments: (34) Collapse
How do you insert a line break in these new equations. I like to have my equations on multiple lines centered around the equal sign (something the old equation editor does very easily)
You have a few choices: 1. You can hit enter at the end of an equation to begin one in a new paragraph. When you multi-select the equations, the "Align at =" context menu command will be available. 2. You can Shift+Enter to create a new equation in the same paragraph. Both the "Align at =" and "Align this character" commands will be available depending on what is selected (the group of equations) or where you've clicked (next to the operator you're aligning).
Thanks alot! Now I can finally use this great new equation editor (though this isn't particularly discoverable)
This is awesome! I'd like to see some syntax hints in tooltips of the gallery. For example, hovering over "Integral" should show "Linear form: '\int'" in the tooltip. and have a "Press F1 for help" :-) Also, how about if Word version++ gets intellisense for math auto correct et. al. ?
Two great suggestions. We thought seriously about your tooltip suggestion during the design phase, but as it turns out, most of our math users will rely exclusively on UI for insertion. We decided not to travel down this path so that the tooltips wouldn't be confusing to someone unfamiliar with Linear Format. That's the great thing about user feedback, though. If we hear enough requests, you never know... :)
Is there any way to change the font used by the new equation feature? I understand most fonts do not have the necessary characters, but some--the pan-Unicode ones like Arial Unicode MS as well as math variants of other typefaces--seem to.
www.jonesxml.com/.../insertingsavedequation.html
I really like the new equation editor, great work! I would second the request to show the linear form in the tooltip. Maybe it one could make it an option to show it? For people that want to learn the linear form, this would be by far the best way! How else would you go about it? I try to look at the auto correct list from time to time, but that is just VERY unhandy. I also believe I found a bug. Here is how you do it. 1. Insert a new equation
2. Type "(a+b)\ldiv"
3. Hit space, this will auto correct "\ldiv"
4. Type "c"
5. Hit space, this will auto correct the whole fraction But, what is shown now will most likely be interpreted as a+(b/c), right? I understand that the fraction replaces brackes on its top, but it really shouldn't do that with \ldiv...
To accompany the new math feature, we've created not only a new font, but a new class of OpenType math fonts. This class of fonts has new OpenType tables for advanced math typography. While the set of symbols may look the same as those contained in some other fonts, there's a lot going on behind the scene that allows us to kern, grow, and stretch characters. Only math fonts can be used inside equations in Word. Right now, the only font with these tables is Cambria Math, but very shortly the typography team will publish a spec on how to create new math fonts.
Thanks for the "second" on the tooltip. Unfortunately it's too late to make this change for Office 2007, but we'll certainly consider it for the version to follow. Since our help topics on Linear Format haven't yet been published, you're correct that right now it's inconvenient to use the Math AutoCorrect dialog as your learning tool. Hopefully Regarding the bug you report: our engine that converts linear format to professional layout removes the outermost parentheses when building up fractions and exponents. If you had wanted a stacked fraction, the linear format is (a+b)/c, and you'd likely want the parentheses to disappear. It's too late to change this behavior for linear fractions, but here's the workaround. Since our rule is to delete the outermost parentheses, you can add a second set, and they will not be deleted in professional format.
Quite frankly, this is the sort of bug that will drive people away from using the feature. If you get the impression that the equation editor has incorrect conversions in it, it is very bad. If the correct behaviour can't be introduced at this point, I would still suggest to remove the "\ldiv" from the list of things that get automatically expanded, that way at least the error is gone. It would be a trade-of between "incorrect" (and I don't have to remember you, but people that write equations are somewhat sensitive to that word) and "inconvinient" (because it would not be that easy anymore to create that particular kind of equation).
The recommended way to write a linear fraction is \/ for the fraction bar. Typing \ before a character makes it a "literal" - we treat the character literally and don't use it to trigger build up. If you type (a+b)\/c, then the quotes don't disappear.
But the \/ surely is also a hack, right? Because for what would you have \ldiv, if \/ is the recommended way?!? I actually WOULD like to have the build up into the fraction with two known parts, but in the case of linear fraction (the one caused by \ldiv) the brackes should not disappear, because the mathematical meaning of the equation changes when you remove them. That is simply a bug. Having proper build up (and not the hack) also seems important in the case of import/export scenarios, be they either via the linear format or the MathML format. Essentially, if I have a third party program that produces the correct linear format, paste it into Word, it will be displayed wrongly. If I use the hack and export the equation, it will probably not export pretty MathML, right? It can't know in that case what things constitute the proper parts of the fraction. I am further worried by this, because if you don't fix it now but suggest various work arounds, you will most likely never be able to fix it due to backwards compatability. In particular, once people start using "((a+b))\ldiv" you are locked in the current (buggy) solution, because you then cannot revert into not removing the brackes, because it will make exisiting documents look wrong. Not pretty, the situation, to be honest... It also is such a nasty bug that I am sure it will turn away quite a number of people. It is everything but trivial that Word might actually change the mathematical meaning of a properly formated linear expression during build up. Bugs like that keep people away from programs, since they are subtle and in the end can lead to embarassing situations. If I publish a paper and a wrong equations gets introduced due to this bug, baaad....
How i will publish equations on the web? Will MSIE render OMML equations? or would be converted to MathML using the XSLT before submit and next rendered via the MathML plugin for MSIE? Juan R.
What about equations in PowerPoint 2007??
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