🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4051@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> graifer@net1.UUCP (Dan Graifer) writes:
>In article <2164@sfsup.UUCP> dwd@sfsup.UUCP (D.W.Dougherty) writes:
>>I just opened the box to my Mac last Saturday and started playing 
>>around with MacWrite.  I noticed, much to my dismay, that there is
>>little support of mathematical symbols.  I do an awful lot of writing
>>which involves some pretty heavy mathematics and I need that flexa-
>>bility.  Can anybody recommend a package that supports just about
>>every mathematical symbol you could think of??  It may certainly
>>be PD.  
>>
>>Thank you.
>
>There are three classes of solutions to this problem:
>1.  If you only need one symbol at any horizontal location on a line, just
>use the Symbol Font supplied with your Mac.  Use the Keycaps DA  (shrink your
>document window, and leave the DA open on the desktop) to find symbol/keyboard
>correspondence.
>
   Symbol has been created by a math minor undergraduate after a few nights
of heavy drinking. Why it would have only the right-to-left set inclusion
is totally beyond me (maybe the undergraduate was studying Hebrew at the
time ?) The font is simply useless - if you really want to write math.
   There is a (ImageWriter bitmap) font Math, which is better - but still
limited by the number of option/shift/key combinations. Also, anything a
little more complicated (but still very common in math) like setting up
matrices, vertical alignment etc. is very difficult using any font/word
processor duet that I know of.

>2.  Use your favorite paint/draw program (the latter is better for editting)
>to create your equations, and copy/paste them to your wp document.  This will
>get easier when MultiFinder is released.
>
   I used to do that but not anymore - see below.
>3.  There are several commercial packages that are essentially specialized 
>draw programs for editting mathematical symbols.  MS Word 3.0x has a limited
>similer capability built in.
>
>    MacEqn
>    MathType
>    MathWriter
>    Expressionist

   I haven't tried any of these, but I've read about them. I don't mean to
offend the authors, but the above programs seem to be total kludges after
you learn TeX (a typesetting system developed by D. Knuth @ Stanford),
which is no easy task - but:
1) even after a few hours you are able to produce a nice and complicated
   paper with all the symbols you can imagine
2) after a few days you begin to get a grip on the most difficult aspect,
   fine points of page layout and alignment (I'm talking millimeters here)
3) after a week or so you develop a set of macros that suit your particular
   needs and make it all a snap
4) after a month you'll want to learn PostScript and how to incorporate
   PS code in a TeX document
5) in the end you look at your old papers/exams/notes created with MacDraw
   and the like with complete disgust, asking yourself: why was I making
   a fool of myself by showing these doodles to anyone and pretending
   I had entered the Computer Age?

Now the bad news: TeX packages for the Mac are rather expensive - unless
you are entitled to some academic discount; the one I'm familiar with, TeXtures
published by Addison-Wesley retails for about $500 (wow!) and I wouldn't
be able to afford it - but my ID card at the UCLA bookstore takes $420
(wow!!!) off of it. Talk about fairness and justice. I know that many
other places have made a deal like that with AW - maybe some companies have,
too. 
Needless to say, I don't even know Dr. Knuth, and have no connection
whatsoever with AW. I have no connections at all - period.    Eric
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          >>>>--------------->         khayo@math.ucla.edu