A formula editor is a computer program that is used to typeset
mathematical formula
In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a '' chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship bet ...
s and
mathematical expressions
In mathematics, an expression or mathematical expression is a finite combination of symbols that is well-formed according to rules that depend on the context. Mathematical symbols can designate numbers ( constants), variables, operations, f ...
.
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
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a mathematical markup language, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide W ...
, via a point-and-click
GUI
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
, or as computer generated results from symbolic computations such as
Mathematica
Wolfram Mathematica is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allow machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network analysis, time series analysis, NLP, optimiza ...
.
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.
Available systems
See also
*
TeX, a typesetting system designed and mostly written by
Donald Knuth
Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer sc ...
*
LaTeX
Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well.
In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...
, a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program
*
MathML
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a mathematical markup language, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide W ...
, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide Web pages and other documents. It is a recommendation of the W3C math working group
References
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