Introducing LaTeX Math Typesetting

chroot

Guide to using the amsmath package:

http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~dunbar/docs/amsldoc.pdf

- Warren

Hurkyl

What are all the spacers available to us? (like '~' and '\,')

(and remember, I'm a LaTeX newbie, so mentioning what they're supposed to do is nice [:)] probably should go in the .pdf too)

Hurkyl

Is there a smaller triangle that goes well here? What's the command for the floor and ceiling functions? Am I spelling the command for omicron wrong, or is omicron identical to 'o' so there isn't a command?

[tex]\Delta x \triangle x[/tex]
[itex]\Delta x \triangle x[/itex]

Ambitwistor

[tex]ab[/tex]
[tex]a b[/tex]
[tex]a\! b[/tex]
[tex]a\, b[/tex]
[tex]a\: b[/tex]
[tex]a\; b[/tex]

Ambitwistor

What do you want a triangle for?

[tex]\lfloor x \rfloor, \lceil y \rceil[/tex]

The latter.

Ambitwistor

'~' isn't really intended to add space in LaTeX; it's just like a regular space, except it's non-breaking (LaTeX won't try to insert a line break there).

Hurkyl

[tex]f(x + \Delta x) = f(x) + f'(x) \Delta x + \varepsilon(\Delta x) \Delta x[/tex]

The triangle seems a little on the big side to me.

Ambitwistor

The triangle, or the letter Delta? If you mean the triangle, what are you trying to use it for?

Hurkyl

Yes, it's the letter delta; I want to use it as one notates a differential or a difference, as in [itex]\Delta x[/itex] (my previous post is the theorem I wanted to state in a post; I copped out with [itex]\delta x[/itex] but I prefer the capital delta).

When I write it by hand, I usually write the delta as the same height as a lower case letter... but now that I've checked some reference material, it seems that the full-size is the norm; ah well. I'd still like to know if I can make a half sized one should I want to in a post. [:)]

Ambitwistor

It may not be too easy to get a small Delta of the correct size...

[tex]\Delta x[/tex]
[tex]\mbox{\small $\displaystyle\Delta$} x[/tex]

Loren Booda

I have trouble opening

http://www.physicsforums.com/misc/howtolatex.pdf

jcsd

Have you got Adobe Acrobat Reader?

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Hurkyl

[itex]\frac{\mathbb{N}}{\mathbb{N}}=\mathbb{N}[/itex]why am I over here?

For some reason this image contains a lot of whitespace on my browser; the text is all on the right side of the message!

Loren Booda

This LaTeX seems to be missing the Greek letter "omicron."

chroot

All LaTeX is "missing" this character. The Greek omicron is exactly the same as the Roman 'o,' and thus has no special \omicron command. Just use 'o.' It's the same story with \Alpha and \Rho and so on.

- Warren

chroot

Hurkyl,

I'm not exactly sure why that's happening. Apprently it's the \frac command that's doing it, coupled with the way I crop inline images. (Inline images are cropped differently from display-mode images, so that they appear at the right location vertically). I'll have to do some more thorough experimenting next time I'm on the site. In the meantime, don't inline \frac I guess. [t)]

You can also inline it manual-style like this: [tex]\mbox{ \Large $ \frac{\mathbb{N}}{\mathbb{N}}=\mathbb{N} $}[/tex]. Doing so renders the image as inline-mode, but crops the image as display-mode (meaning it may not appear at the right position vertically). It works, but that's a bit ridiculous. I'll look into it next time I get the chance.

- Warren

Hurkyl

One should probably use [itex]\mathbb{N}/\mathbb{N}[/itex] style fractions in inline text anyways, but a bug is still a bug!