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I want to add math symbols to my texts, but i can't get Latex to work, are there other ways to type math symbols?

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closed as unclear what you're asking by Jesse, texenthusiast, Werner, Svend Tveskæg, karlkoeller Feb 24 at 6:02


It might seem tempting to stay away from LaTeX as it requires some time to learn, but if you are going to make a lot of documents with math in them I strongly would suggest learning LaTeX. You will save a lot of time in the long run, especially if you want to type more advanced math. –  Thoge Nov 27 '12 at 10:03
Welcome to TeX.SE. This question is not very clear. What is the problem you had with LaTeX? Saying it does not work does not really provide any information that can be used to diagnose the problem. Are you having a problem just with math symbols? Can you even get a basic document without any math to compile with LaTeX? For example does thsi compile for you: \documentclass{article} \begin{document} Hello \end{document}? Where do you want to type these math symbols? –  Peter Grill Nov 27 '12 at 10:07
Downvoted because this topic doesn't provide any information. I suggest deletion. Furthermore, I would advise getting a book about LaTeX, for example Kopka's "Guide to LaTeX", or using Google to find one of the abundant tutorials online. It really is not hard to get started if one shows a modicum of effort. –  mSSM Nov 27 '12 at 10:33
@mSSM On the other hand, Daniel has 1 reputation and this is his first question ever on the whole StackExchange. We prefer not to downvote in such situtaion. It is better to motivate newcomers to improve their question than to punish them by downvotes. –  yo' Nov 27 '12 at 10:46
And to the close-voter: please, leave some time for Daniel to explain his question before it gets closed. This is the standard attitude on TeX.SX! –  yo' Nov 27 '12 at 10:47

3 Answers 3

There are online tables for symbols that you can use to add math symbols, just copy and past from them into your documents.There is also this keyboard for writing math symbols and equations.

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You might want to add that using those symbols directly in LaTeX might require the use of XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, as those keys are usually display UTF-8. –  mSSM Nov 27 '12 at 10:31

I am also learning Latex. There are basically 3 main ways to go about this.

  1. Write raw Latex in an editor, compile to see the result. Repeat as needed.
  2. Use a GUI front end to Latex so that you can see the result as you type. Compile the document at the end to generate the PDF. Examples of this are Lyx and Scientific word.
  3. A solution between the above two, which I think is the ideal way, is to write raw Latex in an editor, but have another window which updates the result as you type, so one can see the result right away. Examples of this are BaKoMa (windows), Latexian, Kile, TexShop+Flasmode (Mac) and emacs+Auctex (which I never managed to get working, but will keep trying :)

For learning, I recommend this http://klatexformula.sourceforge.net/ because you can download it to your PC, and just type the latex in one window and see the output in the other small window below it. On windows, you just need to point it to Miketex. On Linux to texlive.

Mathematica graphics

One nice thing is that one can copy the equation from preview window as an image to the clipboard, and paste it somewhere else (this is what I do when I want to add math annotation to a drawing I am making using other program such as Visio or Illustrator (this is until I learn Tikz:) The update happens as you write, but there seems to be little bit of a delay there, but not too much. Maybe there is a way to configure this to speed the update. Will look into it.

Mathematica graphics

enter image description here

There are lots of Latex cheat sheets on the net. Here are some: 1, 2 and there are more.

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are the above screenshots related to latex equation editor for windows ? –  texenthusiast Feb 24 at 6:10
@texenthusiast , yes. I am on windows now (when not on Linux) and I used the windows version. –  Nasser Feb 24 at 6:23
you might have missed it mentioning in the answer I think –  texenthusiast Feb 24 at 6:26

You could use this online latex compiler (this one is specially thought for equations): http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php

You can download the images for your equations from there and then add them to your texts.

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