How To Make Equations

Usually equations are a pain. This wiki overcomes the problem by using the existing LateX markup language to do the work. LaTeX is a markup language used to create documents. Depending on what field you come from, most of your professors will use it write papers or none of your professors will use it to write papers.

Start off each equation with the codeblocks that make an equation. You have a few options. Inline equations are meant to allow you to put equations within the text, like this $\frac{x^2}{2}$ and blocks that separate the equations like this:

(1)
\begin{align} \frac{x^2}{2} \end{align}

To create the inline equation from above I used, [[$\frac{x^2}{2}$]]. To create the block equations I used,
[$] \frac{x^2}{2} [$]

# A Few Basics

Here are a few basics of LateX mathematical markup. More details may be found here.

• subscripts, [[$x_2$]], $x_2$
• superscripts[[$x^2$]], $x^2$
• fractions, [[$\frac{x}{2}$]], $\frac{x}{2}$
• expanding parenthesis, [[$\left( \frac{x}{2} \right)$]], $\left( \frac{x}{2} \right)$
• summation, [[$\sum x^t$]], $\sum x^t$

If you want a helper application that has more of a point and click interface there are a few websites. This one is fairly easy to work with.

page revision: 5, last edited: 19 Sep 2011 22:58