Pages, Equation Editor and How-To-Get-Away-From-Ms-Office

[xav1379]

Hi All,

I was wondering whether anyone had heard of equation editing in Pages. I took the tour and tried it for a few days. I found it very simple to use and it looks as if it could do everything I need without frustrating me with thousands of functionalities that I will never ever use. But I just could not find any equation editing function. And why the hell didn't they integrate Pages with Grapher? It is such a shame.

Anyway. I continue to use MS Office but beside Excel, I never saw the point of sticking with Word or PowerPoint. In fact, my impression was that Keynote was by far superior to PowerPoint.

I would be very keen to support iWork development and buy it but without equation editing function, I can't switch.

xav1379

PS: I did not get so excited about OpenOffice or ThinkFree. For some reasons, I found them really tacky.
PS: how enjoyable would it be to see Apple releasing a PC version of iWork to compete directly with MS Office. I know it would be hard to replace Excel which is very often used as IT system on its own (no joke!) but Word and PowerPoint could so easily go...

 

[gauchogolfer]

I use a general equation editing program for OS X called Equation Service, which you can download here. It uses LaTeX commands to generate small PDF files which you can then drag and drop into any application. I use it for Keynote more than Pages, but it works all the same. It's not as graphical as Equation Editor, but if you know a little TeX layout it's easy. There are plenty of tutorials on the Web for LaTeX usage as well.

Cheers.

 

[Epicurus]

If you find that you need to do a lot of equations over the course of a few weeks, you would be smart to learn a little LaTeX. I've been dropping PDF images generated by a LaTeX Equation Editor into Keynote since day one (way back with version 1.0). I've yet to have a problem with it.

If they could only add LaTeX/GNUplot/octave to iWork, we'd have a workable one-box solution.

 

[Demon Hunter]

iWork for Windows won't happen... one if its key features is integration with iLife.

But it's awesome, I hope you can find a solution for equations. iWork is a godsend.

 

[MisterMe]

Hi All,

I was wondering whether anyone had heard of equation editing in Pages. I took the tour and tried it for a few days. I found it very simple to use and it looks as if it could do everything I need without frustrating me with thousands of functionalities that I will never ever use. But I just could not find any equation editing function. And why the hell didn't they integrate Pages with Grapher? It is such a shame.

....

First off, there is absolutely no reason to integrate Pages with Grapher. As an equation editor, Grapher is extremely limited. There is no better graphical equation editor than MathEQ, the current incarnation of the pioneering Mac equation editor, Expressionist. Though it does not yet include settings for Pages, it has explicit settings for Keynote. You may also want to look at relative newcomer, MathMagic, which is available as a Personal Edition standalone app, and plug-ins for Quark Xpress and Adobe InDesign. If you are used to the bundled Equation Editor, you may also consider Design Science's full-fledged standalone version, MathType.

 

[gauchogolfer]

First off, there is absolutely no reason to integrate Pages with Grapher. As an equation editor, Grapher is extremely limited. There is no better graphical equation editor than MathEQ, the current incarnation of the pioneering Mac equation editor, Expressionist. Though it does not yet include settings for Pages, it has explicit settings for Keynote. You may also want to look at relative newcomer, MathMagic, which is available as a Personal Edition standalone app, and plug-ins for Quark Xpress and Adobe InDesign. If you are used to the bundled Equation Editor, you may also consider Design Science's full-fledged standalone version, MathType.

I agree that MathEQ is great, but I thought perhaps the poster was looking for a free option. If not, LiveMath or MathEQ are very nice.

 

[Palad1]

There's a free (and powerful) graphing tool bundled with osx..

look in your utilities folder.

I can't recall the name, and my machine is not handy, sorry.

 

[theBB]

Although it requires learning some Latex commands for equation editing, the following free utility might do well for an equation editor:

http://ktd.club.fr/programmation/latexit_en.php

 

[St Soichiro]

Another plug for LaTeX. Have stopped using Word completely. At first we thought it would be intimidating, but after four months my entire research group is very happy and comfortable with LaTeX for all types of documents. Of course I use Keynote for presentations and LaTeX Equation Editor for dropping equations into the presentation.

Word simply does not deliver the quality provided by LaTeX. The latter is free too!

RPS

 

[xav1379]

Thanks everyone. I wasn't aware of the alternative solutions. I doubt I will look at the LaTeX ones but I will definitely try MathEQ, MathLogic and MathType in the next few days.

Thanks again.

xav1379
(MSc Financial Management student at SOAS, University of London)

 

[MisterMe]

There's a free (and powerful) graphing tool bundled with osx..

look in your utilities folder.

I can't recall the name, and my machine is not handy, sorry.

You are thinking about Grapher. I covered it in my previous post. This wonderful app was known as Curvus Pro before Apple bought it. As good as it is at graphing 2-D and 3-D functions and fields, it is extremely limited as an equation editor.