Formula editor
Computer program used to typeset mathematical works or formulae
A formula editor, also known as an equation editor, is a computer program that is used to typeset mathematical formulas and mathematical expressions.
Formula editors typically serve two purposes:
- They allow word processing and publication of technical content either for print publication, or to generate raster images for web pages or screen presentations.
- They provide a means for users to specify input to computational systems that is easier to read and check than plain text input and output from computational systems that is easy to understand or ready for publication.
Content for formula editors can be provided manually using a markup language, e.g. TeX or MathML, via a point-and-click GUI, or as computer generated results from symbolic computations such as Mathematica.
Typical features include the ability to nest fractions, radicals, superscripts, subscripts, overscripts and underscripts together with special characters such as mathematical symbols, arrows and scalable parentheses.
Some systems are capable of re-formatting formulae into simpler forms or to adjust line-breaking automatically, while preserving the mathematical meaning of a formula.
01Notable examples
| Name | Platform | Output formats | TeX support | MathML support | Drawing / annotation support | Computation support | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firemath (discontinued) | No | Yes | No | No | Addon for the Firefox web browser. | ||
| Ket | KET, TXT, PNG, LaTeX, HTML | Partial | No | No | Yes | Provides commands to enable the user to solve back-of-the-envelope calculations | |
| LibreOffice Math | Linux, macOS, Windows | PDF, MathML | No | Yes | No | No | |
| MathMagic | Windows, macOS, Android, iOS | PDF, SVG, EPS, PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF, PICT, WMF, TIFF, LaTeX, MathML, ASCIIMath, Zoho | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, via WolframAlpha | Interoperates with MS Word, Wolfram Alpha, MathJax, Google Docs, MathType, Wiki equations |
| MathCast | No | Yes | No | No | Open source | ||
| MathType | Windows, macOS | WMF, EPS, GIF | Partial | Yes | No | No | Integrates with Microsoft Office through OLE |
| Radical Pie | Windows | SVG, PDF, EMF, PIE | Partial | No | Yes | No | Integrates with Microsoft Office through OLE |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Formula editor”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- MathematicaTypesetExpression.png by User:Greenmatter, Public domain
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