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Trying to use Mathematica as "word processor" for my math homework

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Bob Harris

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Nov 4, 2003, 8:45:01 AM11/4/03
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Howdy,

I have recently returned to grad school, and am attempting to use
mathematica as my "word processor" for my math-related homework. There are
a few annoying things that keep happening to my attempts at this, and I
thought I'd describe them here in hopes that someone would have some better
suggestions.

For an example of what I've been doing, see
http://www.cse.psu.edu/~rsharris/spamlog/ExampleHW.nb

My motivations are (a) it will give me a clean output that will be easier on
the grader's eyes, (b) it will make it easier for me to edit changes to
equations, etc., and (c) I can include mathematica-generated plots and
import drawings from other packages.

I've been doing this with some success from the beginning of the fall
semester. I'm not incredibly sophistocated with mathematica, but have
managed to do this using only InputForm and StandardForm cells (i.e. I have
set the cells to DisplayAs one of those two forms, depending on whether the
cell contains running text or equations). This sort of works, but there are
many shortcomings:

1) Mathematica likes to auto format things, so it is difficult for me to get
things to line up the way I want them to. This has made the inclusion of
mathematical symbology in my running text difficult. I think I have
discovered that displaying a cell as Text rather than InputForm is better,
but haven't tried it much yet.

2) In many cases when I include a plot, or an imported drawing, when I print
out the notebook I get an unnecessary page feed before and/or after the
plot/drawing.

3) Font sizes on the printout don't seem to correlate with font sizes on the
screen. The default size of 12 pt is fine to read on the screen, but is too
small on the printed page. Very surprisingly, it is not as large on paper
as wehen I use 12 pt fonts in other programs.

4) Trying to set font sizes on things seems like a nightmare of hard to
comprehend results. E.g. slecting a cell and setting the font size many
times seems to have no effect whatsoever.

5) ... others ...

I've also looked at style sheets a little bit. Like I said, I'm not very
mathematica-sophistocated, and am trying to find a fairly quick solution
that I can implement without having to dig *too* deep (am willing to dig
some, but don't really have the time with my current class and teaching load
to spend a lot of time with this).

It seems like what I'm after is the same sort of set up that someone writing
a paper for publicatiojn would need. Have looked for such examples, but
have not found any.

Thanks for any help or suggestions,
Bob Harris

Bob Harris

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Nov 4, 2003, 8:57:14 AM11/4/03
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Steve Luttrell

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Nov 5, 2003, 4:07:16 PM11/5/03
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1. Don't use input cells for your running text. To display maths in running
text use a text cell and embed the maths as an inline cell embedded within
this text cell. You can start an inline cell by putting the cursor anywhere
in a text cell and doing "Ctrl 9" (or Edit | Expression INput | Start Inline
Cell).

2. It may be that the page properties are such that there is not enough room
for the plot left on the current page (even though there IS enough room
according to your eye). Have a look at File | Printing Settings | Page
Setup...

3 & 4. You have overridden the default fonts in your cells. If you want to
make global changes then it is best to edit the style sheet. This is done
via Format | Edit Style Sheet ..., and select "Import Private Copy" to
ensure you don't edit the master copy.

If you want to have a standard set up for writing a paper for publication
you could start with the "Article Classic" or "Article Modern" style sheet
(reached from the Format | Style Sheet | ... menu). Use Text cells as your
default. Embed inline maths using inline cells in the text cells. Use
Numbered Equation or Display Formula cells for equations, and convert these
cells to TraditionalForm using Cell | Convert To | Traditional Form in order
to get the maths to display in a nice format (i.e. rather like LaTeX would
produce, but in a different font). For multi-line equations you can lay
things out in a controlled way by inserting a GridBox in the equation (you
find this looking like an empty 2x2 matrix on the Basic Typesetting Palette
reached from the File | Palettes | ... menu), and you plug whatever you want
into the empty gridbox cells ... and I could go on and on ... I find
Mathematica can do everything I want in writing technical papers, but it's
just not documented in a way that helps you get started quickly!

--
Steve Luttrell
West Malvern, UK

"Bob Harris" <nit...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
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tas...@mit.edu

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Nov 5, 2003, 4:12:22 PM11/5/03
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For ease of reading on the screen, use the %200 magnification option.

Theodore Sande
MIT

Steve Gray

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Nov 7, 2003, 10:37:21 AM11/7/03
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On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 08:45:01 +0000 (UTC), Bob Harris
<nit...@mindspring.com> wrote:

>Howdy,
>
>I have recently returned to grad school, and am attempting to use
>mathematica as my "word processor" for my math-related homework. There are
>a few annoying things that keep happening to my attempts at this, and I
>thought I'd describe them here in hopes that someone would have some better
>suggestions.

Hi -
I have found Mathematica to be so incompetent at basic typesetting,
and its behavior so bizarre and unpredicatble, that I would never use
it for what you are doing. I know how to set math in Mathematica (up to its
severe limitations), in Tex (non-wysiwyg), and in Word. It's not a
good route for publishing, but I think Word and Equation Editor are
the easiest and most reliable of the methods. I had a paper in the
March 03 Math Monthly, which I originally wrote in Word and translated
to Tex with the help of some automated software.
Keep in mind that not many people agree with me on this.


Hans Michel

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Nov 7, 2003, 10:44:28 AM11/7/03
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Bob

I had done this in (typesetting assignments) 1990 - 1991 for a math class I
took and a physics class also. At the time my part time work was as a
graphic artist/typesetter. At first doing assignements using mathematica was
tedious. This was not due to formatting issues but as a result of doing the
homework as I typed. When I did it by hand then retyped, the process was
very smooth. Doing assingments using mathematica help me solve a lot of
issues with the program especially this was done in a windows/dos
environment.

The better thing would be to use a style sheet (Can you get additional style
sheet from wolfram). Better yet make one your self. Make extensive use of
the Options Inspector. It would be a good idea to make up a naming
convention.

For example Assignment Style Sheet
Header
AuthorGroup: (List repeatable, an assignment can be group assignments)
FirstName:
LastName:
MiddleInitial:
Class:
Assignment Number:
Due Date: (Ideas is to include <<Miscellaneous`Calendar` for this and the
Date[] with
StringReplace[StringDrop[StringDrop[ToString[RotateLeft[DaysPlus[Take[Date[]
,3],14],1]],1],-1],", "-> "/"]
Note that number 14 stand for 14 days from current date.
or use
Cell[TextData[{ValueBox["MonthName"],"/",
ValueBox["Day"], "/",
ValueBox["Year"] }], "Text"] This though is system time.
How to get future or past dates?)

Question:
Parts/Sections:
Question Text:
Hints:
Notes:
Equations:
Figures:
Tables:
Source:
Book:
Authors Group: (You can use same as above with diferent format)
Publisher:
Edition:
Year:
Chapter:
Page:

Answer:
Notes:
Workouts:
Equations:
Figures:
Tables:
References:
Source:
Book:
Authors Group: (You can use same as above with diferent format)
Publisher:
Edition:
Year:
Chapter:
Page

Hans

"Bob Harris" <nit...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
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Tomas Garza

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Nov 7, 2003, 10:50:35 AM11/7/03
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One more question: How do you place a caption for a table constructed with
gridbox? Something equivalent to PlotLabel for a plot?

Tomas Garza

> "Bob Harris" <nit...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:bo7oud$aj1$1...@smc.vnet.net...

Jens-Peer Kuska

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Nov 8, 2003, 9:56:26 AM11/8/03
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Hi,

GridBox[{{"Caption"}, {GridBox[{{a, b}, {c, d}}]}}] // DisplayForm

Regards
Jens

Steve Luttrell

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Nov 8, 2003, 10:16:50 AM11/8/03
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You can do this in two ways:

1. Simple way: Use a Text or Caption cell beneath the cell containing
the table.

2. Sophisticated way: Make the caption part of the table by creating a
grid box with 2 boxes arranged in a column, in the upper of the 2 boxes
create a gridbox for the table, and in the lower of the 2 boxes put the
caption.

You can construct very complicated 2-dimensional structures by nesting boxes
as in (2) above.

--
Steve Luttrell
West Malvern, UK

"Tomas Garza" <tgar...@prodigy.net.mx> wrote in message
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Steve Luttrell

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Nov 8, 2003, 10:18:54 AM11/8/03
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> I have found Mathematica to be so incompetent at basic typesetting,
> and its behavior so bizarre and unpredicatble, that I would never use
> it for what you are doing.

I wouldn't have put it as strongly as that, but I know what you mean.

I think the default behaviour of the various Mathematica style sheets is not
what you would expect if you are used to a standard wordprocessor (e.g. MS
Word). I have spent a lot of time trying to discover how to coerse
Mathematica into typesetting things the way I want, and I have been defeated
in only a handful of cases (e.g. WYSIWYG multiple-column formatting,
outdented paragraph numbering that is correctly aligned with the first line
of the paragraph, etc).

I wish things were documented better and lots of examples given (maybe it
is - but WHERE is it?) to save us the time rediscovering how to make
Mathematica do the typesetting we want. It seems that a long learning curve
is quite a tradition with Mathematica.

FWIW I have written many technical papers using Mathematica, which I also
use to develop the research and generate the results that appear in my
papers. I used to use MS Word and LaTeX, but now I can't imagine not using
Mathematica despite having to solve cryptic (but very logical) puzzles in
order to make it do what I want.

Paul Abbott

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Nov 10, 2003, 10:02:12 AM11/10/03
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In article <bofsl1$5ko$1...@smc.vnet.net>,
Steve Gray <ste...@adelphia.net> wrote:

> I have found Mathematica to be so incompetent at basic typesetting,
> and its behavior so bizarre and unpredicatble, that I would never use
> it for what you are doing. I know how to set math in Mathematica (up to its
> severe limitations),

Do you mind listing these? I have never found the basic typesetting
behavior bizarre or unpredicatble, so I'm interested to understand what
problems you've encountered.

> in Tex (non-wysiwyg), and in Word. It's not a good route for publishing,
> but I think Word and Equation Editor are the easiest and most reliable
> of the methods.

I find this suprising. Equation Editor is fine but the behavior of Word
certainly can be bizarre, unpredicatble, and really annoying!

> I had a paper in the March 03 Math Monthly, which I originally wrote in
> Word and translated to Tex with the help of some automated software.

All of my publications since 1995 have resulted from (semi-) automatic
conversion of Notebooks to TeX.

> Keep in mind that not many people agree with me on this.

To me, the principal strength of Mathematica's typesetting is the
unification between form and function. Typeset equations, or at least
parts of them, are understood by the Mathematica kernel. This is not the
case with TeX or Word.

Also, some journals are starting to accept Notebooks, which simplifies
the conversion process.

Cheers,
Paul

--
Paul Abbott Phone: +61 8 9380 2734
School of Physics, M013 Fax: +61 8 9380 1014
The University of Western Australia (CRICOS Provider No 00126G)
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6009 mailto:pa...@physics.uwa.edu.au
AUSTRALIA http://physics.uwa.edu.au/~paul

Steve Luttrell

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Nov 11, 2003, 1:07:21 AM11/11/03
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> Also, some journals are starting to accept Notebooks, which simplifies
> the conversion process.

Which journals accept Mathematica notebooks?

Thus far the only common format that I have found to allow me (using
Mathematica to typeset papers) to communicate with publishing houses is PDF.

Paul Abbott

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Nov 12, 2003, 1:21:31 PM11/12/03
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In article <bopco9$oot$1...@smc.vnet.net>,
"Steve Luttrell" <luttrell@_removemefirst_westmal.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> > Also, some journals are starting to accept Notebooks, which simplifies
> > the conversion process.
>
> Which journals accept Mathematica notebooks?

See http://arXiv.org/help/submit. Andre Kuzniarek from WRI can provide a list of
current Journals.

> Thus far the only common format that I have found to allow me (using
> Mathematica to typeset papers) to communicate with publishing houses is PDF.

You can, of course, produce camera-ready manuscripts directly from
Notebooks. I did this for the MathLink book published by Cambridge
University Press.

mrk...@gmail.com

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Oct 27, 2012, 3:48:23 AM10/27/12
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I recall using palettes in a very simple way in v.6. I can't remember if I clicked on a symbol or pasted it into my text. But when I tried these in my v.8 Mathematica, nothing happened! I have only used Basic Typesetting in a teChem) problems. But I'm hardly a beginner, just a little rusty. So...
How do I enter a symbol from a palette into text cells? No, I don't want to use special keyboard combinations, which is one direction the docs take me when I look for typesetting.
BTW:
There seems to be ABSOLUTELY no help with this issue in the Documentation centers. Although, I see entries promising such information, they lead me on a goose chase every time. There was a video in there somewhere, but it froze and couldn't be restarted after I paused it once. Is there something obvious I'm missing here?
I'm running Windows 7, 64-bit on a Core-2 Duo machine with 4GB RAM.
Mark



Richard Fateman

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Oct 29, 2012, 3:45:34 AM10/29/12
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On 10/26/12 8:48 PM, mrk...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 4, 2003 12:43:34 AM UTC-8, Bob Harris wrote:
>> Howdy,
>>
>> I have recently returned to grad school, and am attempting to use
>> mathematica as my "word processor" for my math-related homework.

I have a suggestion. Ask your instructor if this makes sense.
As a (former)j instructor at both MIT (math) and UC Berkeley,
(computer science) my advice is:
don't waste your time on this. It will not improve your understanding
or your grade. On the contrary, it will distract you,
and possibly thwart your efforts to show your answers.

RJF



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