From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Oct 6 21:47:20 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E882416A417 for ; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 21:47:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from michel@lpthe.jussieu.fr) Received: from shiva.jussieu.fr (shiva.jussieu.fr [134.157.0.129]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8226113C448 for ; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 21:47:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from michel@lpthe.jussieu.fr) Received: from parthe.lpthe.jussieu.fr (parthe.lpthe.jussieu.fr [134.157.10.1]) by shiva.jussieu.fr (8.13.8/jtpda-5.4) with ESMTP id l96LlJRO029633 for ; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 23:47:19 +0200 (CEST) X-Ids: 164 Received: from niobe.lpthe.jussieu.fr (niobe.lpthe.jussieu.fr [134.157.10.41]) by parthe.lpthe.jussieu.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6081223779B for ; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 23:47:18 +0200 (CEST) Received: by niobe.lpthe.jussieu.fr (Postfix, from userid 2005) id 4BA1F8F; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 23:47:18 +0200 (CEST) Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 23:47:18 +0200 From: Michel Talon To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20071006214718.GA8963@lpthe.jussieu.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (shiva.jussieu.fr [134.157.0.164]); Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:47:19 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.7/4485/Sat Oct 6 20:52:57 2007 on shiva.jussieu.fr X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Miltered: at shiva.jussieu.fr with ID 47080267.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! Subject: Re: Equations X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:47:21 -0000 Eduardo Morras said: > Excuse me for the intromision, but i'm reading this thread, waiting > for a tiny and easy app (no tex,troff,...) that can do equations as > the first message said. Can i think that there is no such app? There may be some under Windows, but i don't know. Under Unix machines i don't know anything easier (*) than TeX. For an introduction to students i have tried the OpenOffice equation editor, it is quite similar (hence as easy or difficult) to the things you type in TeX, except it has far less possibilities and does a poor job of formatting. People say me that the Word equation editor is even worse. By the way, there is a Java program which transforms OpenOffice equations (and text) into TeX source (writer2latex), but unfortunately i don't see anything of reasonable quality to do the converse. (*) There is a GUI tool which is supposed to ease typing TeX formulas, because you see them a you type, it is LyX. I have never found it very intuitive. There is also a mode for emacs which has partly such functionality. And finally there is more radical departure from Latex than LyX which is Texmacs (beware, it needs a powerful machine). Maybe some day it will evolve into an easy to use scientific editor. At the moment, i have found that using an helping tool like kile or texmaker (this one exists for Windows) allows students who have never seen TeX previously to type scientific texts with equations in less than a day in plain Latex. With troff i have zero experience. -- Michel TALON