7 replies to this topic

[George]

We're aware of the problems in posting mathematical content, and I've been looking at ways of solving this.

One idea is to use emoticons to make it easier to create and read messages containing maths. For example:

2 = 16
log a = ln a
x dx = (1/2)x

Please use this thread to let us know if this would be useful, and if so, what abbreviations we should use.

Thanks

[AndyW]

Sounds like a good idea.

Could do this:

[^-] - negative sign in superscript
[^/] - slash in superscript (for fractions)
[^1] - 1 in superscript
[^2] - 2 in superscript
and continued up to 9.

Then to write, for example, 7 to the power of -2/3 you would enter:

7[^-][^2][^/][^3]

[Anavris_Mike]

another idea you could use is instead of using emoticons is creating a sticky with all the different symbols and letting people just copy and paste them from the sticky, but that might be a bit of a long way for a shortcut lol.


√
½
⅓
⅔
¼
¾
⅛
⅜
⅝
⅞
²
³
ⁿ
≠
≡
∑
≤
≥


Those are the ones i can think of thats available in fonts just now, can anyone think of any others? (Just my 2c btw).

[AndyW]

Special symbols like those often cause cross-platform problems. If I copy and paste that column of symbols, using Safari on OS X, it appears as:

?
½
?
?
¼
¾
?
?
?
?
²
³
?
?
?
?
?
?

[Anavris_Mike]

ah yes, i forgot its not a platform specific web site. then the best way would probably be to use emoticons for it. If i can think of any other ways ill post em up but thats prob the best way

[Shaun]

I'm also using Safari and I see the same

[AndyW]

Anyway, more suggestions for useful shortcuts:

[_n] Subscript n (for recurrance relations)
[_n+1] subscript n+1 (for recurrance relations)
[=>] for implies
[tf] for therefore (three dots)
[pi] for pi
[deg] for degrees

[George]

Thanks for all those suggestions - I've added those and more. Please try them out, and let me know if I've missed anything