Xref: utzoo comp.editors:970 comp.text:5120 comp.text.desktop:938 comp.sys.ibm.pc:35463 comp.sources.wanted:8880 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:4653 sci.math.symbolic:915 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!uvaarpa!mcnc!thorin!cassatt!butterwo From: butterwo@cassatt.cs.unc.edu (Jeff Butterworth) Newsgroups: comp.editors,comp.text,comp.text.desktop,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sources.wanted,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d,sci.math.symbolic Subject: mathematical editor Keywords: math, editor, wishful-thinking Message-ID: <9722@thorin.cs.unc.edu> Date: 28 Sep 89 22:08:24 GMT Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu Lines: 38 As a physics major and computer programmer, I've spent much of my life scratching away with pencil and paper, creating equations that would choke a horse. Some of these babies take three lines of notebook paper and contain every special squiggle my math professor could dig out of his medieval calculus torture books. I know that premature arthritis has always been a healthy part of every scientist's training, but I've suffered long enough. What I want to know is, is there any editor out there that will allow me to manipulate equations and other mathematical symbols? It doesn't have to do any calculations at all. (That's my job.) I just want to be able to do my homework on the computer, like all the English and Psych majors. Surely there's something that will let me do the basic word processing tasks like cutting and pasting, but will also let me type in a messy fraction and then put a square root sign around it. The only kind of program that I've seen that comes close is a paint program. I wouldn't mind creating all of the special symbols in mac-draw, but actually putting them together in each new situation would be a tedious nightmare. And I'm not even going to go near complicated text formating packages like eqn for UNIX. Those require more time to use than just grabbing a no.2 pencil and a sheet of notebook paper, and the encoded info is far from WYSIWYG. I would prefer something for the IBM PC, but I would even hop on a Mac or X-Windows if I could type in equations. Can anyone give me some pointers? Thanks in advance. P.S. Please respond through e-mail if possible. If there is sufficient response, then I will post a summary to the net. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Between two evils, I always choose the one I haven't tried." - Mae West Jeff Butterworth Home: 509 N. Columbia St., Chapel Hill, NC 27516 (919) 933-1394 School: 235 Sitterson, UNC-Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (919) 962-1719 butterwo@cs.unc.edu Work: Data General (Graphics Group), Research Triangle Park, NC butterwo@dg-rtp.dg.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------