User Guide

Chapter 7: Fonts, Styles, Sizes and Spacing
Last printed 8/20/2001 9:40 AM
Vector-Matrix
The Vector-Matrix style is used for characters representing vector or matrix
quantities. It is usually defined to be the same font as the Variable style, but is
given a bold character style instead of italic. Some people like to use sans-serif
fonts, such as Arial or Helvetica, to denote vector or matrix quantities.
Number
Not too surprisingly, the Number style is used for numbers, i.e. any of the ten
digits, 0–9. You will probably want it to be the same as the primary font. If you
are making tables with columns of numbers, you should define your number
style to be a font in which all the numerals are the same width, so that your
columns line up properly. Most fonts have this property, even ones like Times,
whose alphabetic characters have proportional widths, but a few do not.
User 1 and User 2
Keyboard Shortcuts
Convenient keyboard
shortcuts are available
that change the style of
the next character you
type to the User 1 or
User 2 style. For
example, if you assign
Euclid Math One to
User 1, you can insert
the character #, by
typing CTRL+U, then L.
New Functions
You can customize the
list of functions
MathType recognizes
using the Functions
Recognized command
on the Preferences
menu.
The User 1 and User 2 styles are provided so that you can set up your own font
and character style combinations and assign them to characters quickly and
consistently. These styles may be used for special notation, such as an alternative
character style for variables, or for assigning some font that contains special
symbols. If you assign a font to one of these styles, you can insert any character
from the font into an equation by choosing the User 1 or User 2 command and
then pressing the key(s) corresponding to the character. This is a good alternative
to placing special symbols on the toolbars (as described in Chapter 7), when you
want quick access to a special alphabetic font. For example, you might use Euclid
Math One for script characters (e.g. !,"#,"$) or Euclid Fraktur for “gothic”
characters (e.g. A, M, X).
Automatic Style Assignment
As we mentioned above, MathType will often assign certain styles to certain
kinds of characters automatically, based on its knowledge of mathematics and
typesetting conventions. There are two mechanisms that cause this to happen:
function recognition and character substitution.
Function Recognition
When your current style is Math (which will be most of the time), MathType will
automatically recognize standard mathematical functions, like “sin” and “cos”,
and display them using the Function style. In addition, MathType will
automatically insert thin spaces around functions, according to the rules of
mathematical typesetting.
Character Substitution
If your current style is Math, Variable, Function, Vector-Matrix, or Greek, then
MathType will sometimes substitute different characters in place of the ones you
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