
Hopefully people actually read this and take heed, just so that I haven't wasted 30 mins of my valuable time.

PS. Point out anything that I've missed out/got wrong. Thanks, Nathan

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LaTeX is a special type of coding which can help you and others when posting for help on the HSN Maths forums. Basically, it stops confusion when it comes to things like:
x2/5x+3
I mean, is this


It's really simple to use once you get the hang of it, and for the basics, you only need to remember a few simple words that'll get you writing equations in no time at all.
Writing in LaTeX
To write in LaTeX in this forum, you need to put the LaTeX in [tex ] and [/tex ] tags. For example,
CODE
[tex]x^2[/tex]
becomes

Plus/Minus
To use the

CODE
[tex]\pm[/tex]
Multiplying and Dividing
For

CODE
[tex]2 \times 2= 4[/tex]
For

CODE
[tex]4 \div 2 = 2[/tex]
Fractions
Example:

CODE
[tex]\frac{x}{2}[/tex]
Note the backslash (\) and use of curly brackets ({&}). If you miss out the \ or use the wrong type of brackets, then the code won't work!
Multiple lines of working
You can put more than 1 line of working in [tex ] tags. All you need to do is put a double backslash (\\) at the start of each new line.

CODE
[tex]\\12y=24
\\y=2[/tex]
\\y=2[/tex]
Calculus
For

CODE
[tex]\frac{d}{dx}x^2=2x[/tex]
For

CODE
[tex]\int 2x dx = x^2[/tex]
Greek Letters

CODE
[tex]\pi \theta \delta \alpha[/tex]
Fractions
To get larger fractions, either use "display" tags rather than "tex" ones, e.g.


Alligning equations
The "display" one is more powerful, since that lets you do multiple lines of equations aligned at the = sign, e.g.

CODE
[display]
y-b &=m(x-a) \\
y &= 2x + 3
[/display]
y-b &=m(x-a) \\
y &= 2x + 3
[/display]
The "&=" is used instead of just "=", since the & symbol tells latex where you want things to line up.
The only other thing I would point out is trig - if you just do "sin x" it looks funny -


This also applies to "\cos x" and "\tan x".
Logs
Also, for logs:

CODE
[tex]\log_{10}100=\log_{10}10^2=2[/tex]
Edited by Nathan, 08 April 2007 - 11:43 AM.