User's Manual

Introduction
The equation editor uses a markup language to represent formulas. For example, “%beta”
creates the Greek character beta (

). This markup is designed to read similar to English
whenever possible. For example, “a over b” produces a fraction:
a
b
Entering a Formula
There are three main ways of entering a formula:
• Type markup in the equation editor.
• Right-click on the equation editor and select the symbol from the context menu.
• Select a symbol from the Selection toolbox.
The context menu and the Selection toolbox insert the markup corresponding to a symbol.
Incidentally, this provides a convenient way to learn the OOoMath markup. When you select
a symbol from the Selection toolbox, it will show up like this in this equation editor:
<?> times <?>
And it will display on screen in Writer like this:
×
When you are editing in the equation editor, you need to remove the <?> and replace it with
the terms of the equation. For example, “5 times 4” produces
5×4
. Below is a short list of
common equations and their corresponding markup.
Display Command Display Command
a=b
a = b

%gamma %GAMMA
a
2
a^2
a
n
a_n
∫
f  xdx
int f(x) dx
∑
a
n
sum a_n
a≤b
a <= b
∞
infinity
a
b
a over b
a
b
stack { a # b }

a
sqrt {a}

u
vec u
x× y
x times y
x⋅y
x cdot y
Math Objects 2