Operation Manual

To write function names with primes, as is usual in school notation, you must first add the signs to
the catalog. Using single and double quotes is typographically ugly. See “Customizing the catalog”
on page 278.
Markup characters as regular characters
Characters that are used for controlling markup cannot be entered directly as normal characters.
The characters concerned are: %, {, }, &, |, _, ^ and ". So, for example, you cannot write 2% =
0.02 or 1" = 2.56cm. Two methods are available to overcome this limitation:
• Use double quotes to mark the character as text, for example 2"%"= 0.02. This is not
possible for the double-quote character itself.
• Add the character to the catalog. See the section “Customizing the catalog” on page 278.
In some cases you can use commands:
• lbrace and rbrace give you literal braces
{}
.
• mline gives you the vertical line, for example 2 mline 3 for
(2
∣
3)
Conversion into a character entity as in HTML or the use of an escape character is not possible in
Math.
Text in a formula
To include text in a formula, enclose it in straight double-quotes:
abs x = left lbrace matrix {x # "for " x >= 0 ## -x # "for " x < 0} right none
∣
x
∣
=
{
x for x ≥0
−x for x <0
All characters except double quotes are permissible in text. Unfortunately the Special characters
dialog is not available. If necessary, you can write the text in a text document and copy it into the
equation editor via the clipboard. In this way smart quotes can be inserted, as shown below.
Figure 270: Smart quotes included by copy and paste from Writer.
Text is shown in the font that was selected from the Text list in the Fonts dialog (compare with the
section Changing the font page 273). To use a font from the lower window of the equation editor,
set the attribute Serif, Sans or Fixed before the text.
By default, text is left-justified. You can change the justification with alignc or alignr.
Commands are not interpreted within text. Use quotes to break up the text if you wish to use
special formatting commands.
"In " color blue bold "isosceles" " triangles, the base angles are equal"
In isosceles triangles, the base angles are equal
Chapter 9 Getting Started with Math | 271