# LaTeX and Mac OS X's Grapher (advice)

1. Dec 17, 2008

### daytripper

LaTeX and Mac OS X's "Grapher" (advice)

Hello everyone.
I recently stumbled upon something that I consider incredibly useful (and poor practice, I realize). I figured I'd post it here in the hopes of helping someone to discover this themselves.

Using Grapher to create LaTeX expressions for PF:
Go into Mac's Grapher and type up an equation. Grapher has a fairly intuitive expression editor in it. After you've created your equation right-click on the equation. An option should pop up saying "copy LaTeX expression". After that, when posting it to the forums, simply surround what's on your clipboard with [ tex] [ /tex] (minus the extra spaces) and you're done.

Here's some useful keyboard shortcuts for things such as sqrt, sigma, and the integral thingy.
To type these symbols in grapher, hold down "alt" then press the corresponding key
= - $$\neq$$

p - $$\pi$$

w - $$\sum_{a}^{b}{f\left( x \right)}$$ (notated for ease of reading)

d - $$\partial$$

/ - $$\div$$

b - $$\int_{a}^{b}{f\left( x \right)}$$

v - $$\sqrt{a}$$

V (capitol V) - $$\sqrt[a]{b}$$

alt + capitol P makes a symbol which looks familiar and apparently can be used by Grapher but there seems to be some sort of issue with the LaTeX.

You can make ∆ via alt+j but there's no latex expression for it. Same goes for ≈ with alt+x.
î can be produce via alt+i then i again, but this seems pointless as it seems you can't make j-hat or k-hat.

Anyway, I hope I've been of help.
-Tim

edit: mutton pointed out that there is a way to write delta and approximation via LaTeX (see below). Mac just doesn't do this for you. Sorry if the above comment was misleading. Thanks mutton.

Last edited: Dec 17, 2008
2. Dec 17, 2008

### mutton

Re: LaTeX and Mac OS X's "Grapher" (advice)

For manual conversion:

\Delta - $$\Delta$$
\approx - $$\approx$$

3. Dec 17, 2008

Re: LaTeX and Mac OS X's "Grapher" (advice)

\hat i - $$\hat i$$

\hat j - $$\hat j$$

\hat k - $$\hat k$$

The dots on the i and j don't look nice with the hat, so:

\hat \imath - $$\hat \imath[/itex] \hat \jmath - [tex]\hat \jmath[/itex] I find that it really is fastest to just type the LaTeX directly when posting. (Then again, I've never made LaTeX code any other way.) 4. Dec 17, 2008 ### daytripper Re: LaTeX and Mac OS X's "Grapher" (advice) yea, but I've got an easy way out so I guess I'll never learn. haha. thanks for the tips on [tex]\hat \imath$$ and such, though.
edit: \imath isn't working for me... my latex for that symbol is \hat \imath... not sure why