Open office formula

[fifafrazer]

Hey, how can other scientific guys live with the fact that open office cant align equations at "=" ?

I know there are some workarounds: put the equations into a matrix or use ooolatex, but those workarounds slows your work down alot. So, is that really what you do, or do you got any other suggestions?

[kleeman]

Personally I use lyx (see moniker). It rocks!

[fifafrazer]

Today I've spent som hours with lyx, but the math editor in that program is the worse i've ever tried.
It is a combo of the worst of Mathtype and the worst of open office formula editor. I like the lyx program, but that math editor is terrible. I dont understand why OO dont implement full latex or just make it possible to align equations at = in their current formula editor.. It's actually the only reason why I keep using windows.

[slaanco]

i use vim and compile tex files with latex, and I have no problems at all. try to do it in the old way

[UbuWu]

Abiword seems to do a pretty good job on math equations, have you tried that?

[fifafrazer]

I have now tried all the suggestions in this thread, and I still prefer Mathtype, but the formula editor in OO is the second best. I'll just have to use the "phantom" function to align the equations at "=". Do you guys know how to make these arrows in OO formula editor:


It's a requirements for my school assigments.

[tweedledee]

I have now tried all the suggestions in this thread, and I still prefer Mathtype, but the formula editor in OO is the second best. I'll just have to use the "phantom" function to align the equations at "=". Do you guys know how to make these arrows in OO formula editor:


It's a requirements for my school assigments.

Go to Character Map (Accessories Menu in Gnome), View -> By Unicode Block, select your font, select "arrows" from block list. Double-click the arrows to copy them to the copy bar, hit copy, and paste into the math editor. In theory you could do it using the unicode shortcut via the keyboard directly, but the version of OO in Edgy has problems inserting unicode characters that way.

[forcotton]

I second the suggestion for LyX. In LyX you don't use the math editor a lot; in fact you use numerous key binding for all your work.
For example, if you want to type α(the greek alpha), you either type \alpha as in latex, or use hot key M-m M-g M-a (M- is actually alt. this stands for math-greek-alpha). To get an Σ sign (as for summation), I just type \sum . Good old LaTeX fashion.
To get aligned equations, I just type Ctrl-Enter at the end of formula (but not out of math mode). Believe me it's a lot faster than switching between UI buttons and the keyboard.

[yotama9]

lyx is wonderfull

up untill you try to put a table in you document. it gets alighned wrong and I couldn't have a large table (of 10 colums )

also it's can't handle hebrew well

[daller]

I actually like the formula-editor in OO, but how do I create a shortcut to insert a formula? - Something like F4 or something...

I use a lot of formulas, so this would be nice...