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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.

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"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
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