Equation formatting

Hi,

I've been trying to decide whether to use Word 2007 or LaTeX for a long
document that has lots of equations and pictures. I have switched back and
forth a couple of times already, for various reasons.

Despite its arcane technology, I'm now leaning towards LaTeX because I
can't get some of my equations to look nice in Word 2007.

Specifically:
(1) The "sigma" symbols in summations are way too tall (the Cambria Math
font is the source of this trouble, I suppose)
(2) Parentheses around tall objects (like fractions) are generally not tall
enough
(3) Square root symbols are too tall

Is there any way to adjust the formatting in any of these 3 cases ??

thanks

cc

FWIW, you can still use the "old" Design Science equation editor in Word
2007.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"ciaociao" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've been trying to decide whether to use Word 2007 or LaTeX for a long
document that has lots of equations and pictures. I have switched back and
forth a couple of times already, for various reasons.

Despite its arcane technology, I'm now leaning towards LaTeX because I
can't get some of my equations to look nice in Word 2007.

Specifically:
(1) The "sigma" symbols in summations are way too tall (the Cambria Math
font is the source of this trouble, I suppose)
(2) Parentheses around tall objects (like fractions) are generally not
tall
enough
(3) Square root symbols are too tall

Is there any way to adjust the formatting in any of these 3 cases ??

thanks

cc

Yep, I know. Thanks. But the new 2007 equation editor has lots of advantages,
so I'd like to use it, if I can figure out how to get the formatting I want.

I just discovred that there are concepts of "phantom" and "smash" in the
the new equation editor (which is how you control this sort of thing in
LaTeX).
Maybe those hold the key, but they are almost entirely undocumented.

thanks again

cc

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, you can still use the "old" Design Science equation editor in Word
2007.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"ciaociao" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've been trying to decide whether to use Word 2007 or LaTeX for a long
document that has lots of equations and pictures. I have switched back and
forth a couple of times already, for various reasons.

Despite its arcane technology, I'm now leaning towards LaTeX because I
can't get some of my equations to look nice in Word 2007.

Specifically:
(1) The "sigma" symbols in summations are way too tall (the Cambria Math
font is the source of this trouble, I suppose)
(2) Parentheses around tall objects (like fractions) are generally not
tall
enough
(3) Square root symbols are too tall

Is there any way to adjust the formatting in any of these 3 cases ??

thanks

cc

I just discovered that there are concepts of "phantom" and "smash" in the
the new equation editor (which is how you control this sort of thing in
LaTeX). Maybe those hold the key, but they are almost entirely undocumented.

After a bit more research, it seems to me that the phantom and smash commands
don't work at all. Even the examples in the RTF spec are rendered incorrectly.

I found a hack to make parentheses taller ... you can put a slot containing
a space
above the parenthesised item.

No progress on square roots.

It's a pity, really, because the formatting is very good (even better than
LateX)
in some other cases. But I can't live with goofy parentheses, summations,
and square roots.

And another hack for making summation symbols smaller -- you can construct
them "by hand" using a Sigma symbol, which is smaller than the summation
symbol.

The smash command works fine over here.

I created an example macro for you which will create a simple fraction (x/y)
under a square root. You can comment out the omf3 and omf4 parts to see the
different effects of smash.

I've uploaded a screenshot with the result I'm getting at
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/3366/smash.png

Yves

===============================
Sub MathRadical()

Dim om As OMath
Dim omf As OMathFunction
Dim omf2 As OMathFunction
Dim omf3 As OMathFunction
Dim omf4 As OMathFunction

' Insert a new equation.
WordBasic.EquationInsert

' Set the object.
Set om = Selection.OMaths(1)

' Create a radical.
Set omf = om.Functions.Add(om.Range, wdOMathFunctionRad)

' Hide the degree (assume square root for sample).
omf.Rad.HideDeg = True

' Create a fraction inside the radical.
Set omf2 = omf.Rad.E.Functions.Add(omf.Rad.E.Range, wdOMathFunctionFrac)
omf2.Frac.Type = wdOMathFracBar
omf2.Frac.Num.Range.Text = "x"
omf2.Frac.Den.Range.Text = "y"

' Create a phantom.
Set omf3 = omf2.Frac.Num.Functions.Add(omf2.Frac.Num.Range,
wdOMathFunctionPhantom)
omf3.Phantom.Smash = True

' Create a phantom.
Set omf4 = omf2.Frac.Den.Functions.Add(omf2.Frac.Den.Range,
wdOMathFunctionPhantom)
omf4.Phantom.Smash = True

End Sub
===============================

"ciaociao" wrote in message
...
I just discovered that there are concepts of "phantom" and "smash" in the
the new equation editor (which is how you control this sort of thing in
LaTeX). Maybe those hold the key, but they are almost entirely
undocumented.

After a bit more research, it seems to me that the phantom and smash
commands
don't work at all. Even the examples in the RTF spec are rendered
incorrectly.

I found a hack to make parentheses taller ... you can put a slot
containing
a space
above the parenthesised item.

No progress on square roots.

It's a pity, really, because the formatting is very good (even better than
LateX)
in some other cases. But I can't live with goofy parentheses, summations,
and square roots.

And another hack for making summation symbols smaller -- you can construct
them "by hand" using a Sigma symbol, which is smaller than the summation
symbol.

Thanks very much Yves.

I ran your macros, and at first I thought they didn't work, either.

Next, I ran them on a second computer, and found that they *did* work.

The difference, it turns out, is that, on the second computer,
I had Word's "Show/Hide" parameter set to "Hide".
I didn't realise that this setting impacts the display of phantom and
smash objects. I almost always work with this setting equal to "Show",
so that I can see paragraph marks, spaces, tabs, etc. That's why
I was getting incorrect display.

thanks again

cc