Getting Started Guide

Chapter 9
Getting Started with
Math
OpenOffice.org's Equation Editor
Copyright
This document is Copyright © 2005–2008 by its contributors as listed
in the section titled Authors. You may distribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of either the GNU General Public License, version 3 or
later, or the Creative Commons Attribution License, version 3.0 or
later.
All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Authors
Agnes Belzunce
Daniel Carrera
Peter Kupfer
Ian Laurenson
Janet M. Swisher
Jean Hollis Weber

Feedback
Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to:
authors@user-faq.openoffice.org

Acknowledgments
This chapter is extracted from Chapter 16, “Math Objects: The
OpenOffice.org Equation Editor” in the Writer Guide.

Publication date and software version

Published 8 November 2008. Based on OpenOffice.org 3.0.

You can download

an editable version of this document from
http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide3/published/
Contents
Copyright...............................................................................................2
What is Math?........................................................................................3
Getting started....................................................................................4
Entering a formula.................................................................................4
The Selection window.........................................................................5
Right-click menu.................................................................................7
Markup...............................................................................................8
Greek characters................................................................................8
Customizations.....................................................................................10
Formula editor as a floating window.................................................10
How can I make a formula bigger?...................................................11
Formula layout.....................................................................................13
Brackets are your friends..................................................................13
Equations over more than one line...................................................13
Common problem areas.......................................................................14
How do I add limits to my sum/integral?..........................................14
Brackets with matrices look ugly!.....................................................14
How do I make a derivative?.............................................................15
Numbering equations.......................................................................15

Getting Started with Math 3

What is Math?
Math is OpenOffice.org (OOo)’s component for writing mathematical
equations. It is most commonly used as an equation editor for text
documents, but it can also be used with other types of documents or
stand-alone. When used inside Writer, the equation is treated as an
object inside the text document.

The equation editor is for writing equations in symbolic form (as

Note in equation 1). If you want to evaluate a numeric value, see the
Calc Guide.

df  x −1 2
=ln  x tan  x  (1)
dx

Getting started
To insert an equation, go to Insert > Object > Formula.
The equation editor opens at the bottom of the screen, and the floating
Selection window appears. You will also see a small box (with a gray
border) in your document, where the formula will be displayed, as
shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Equation Editor, Selection window, and

location of resulting equation.

4 Getting Started with Math

The equation editor uses a markup language to represent formulas. For
example, %beta creates the Greek character beta (  ). This markup is
designed to read similar to English whenever possible. For example, a
a
over b produces a fraction: b .

Entering a formula
There are three ways to enter a formula:
• Select a symbol from the Selection window.
• Right-click on the equation editor and select the symbol from the
context menu.
• Type markup in the equation editor.
The context menu and the Selection window insert the markup
corresponding to a symbol. Incidentally, this provides a convenient way
to learn the OOoMath markup.

Click on the document body to exit the formula editor.

Note Double-click on a formula to enter the formula editor again.

The Selection window

The simplest method for entering a formula is the Selection window,
shown in Figure 1.

Categories

Symbols

Figure 2. Symbols are divided into categories

The Selection window is divided into two main portions.
• The top shows the symbol categories. Click on these to change
the list of symbols.
• The bottom shows the symbols available in the current category.

Entering a formula 5
 You can hide (or unhide) the Selection window with View >
Tip Selection.

Example 1: 5×4
For this example we will enter a simple formula: 5×4 On the Selection
window:
1) Select the top-left button of the categories (top) section
(Figure 3).
2) Click on the multiplication symbol (shown in Figure 3).
Unary/binary operators

Multiplication

Figure 3. Unary/binary operators

When you select the multiplication symbol on the Selection window,
two things happen:
• The equation editor shows the markup: <?> times <?>
• The body of the document shows a gray box with the figure:
×

Figure 4. The multiplication symbol

The <?> symbols (Figure 4) are placeholders that you can replace by
other text. The equation will update automatically, and the result
should resemble Figure 5.

6 Getting Started with Math

 Figure 5. Result of entering 5 and 4 next to the
times operator

To keep the equation from updating automatically, select View

>AutoUpdate display.
Tip To update a formula manually, press F9 or select View >
Update.

Right-click menu
Another way to access mathematical symbols is to right-click on the
equation editor. This produces a menu as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Right-click menu

The entries in this menu correspond exactly to those in the

Note Selection window.

Entering a formula 7
Markup
You can type the markup directly on the equation editor. For example,
you can type 5 times 4 to obtain 5×4 . If you know the markup, this
can be the fastest way to enter a formula.

As a mnemonic, the formula markup resembles the way the

Tip formula reads in English.

Below is a short list of common equations and their corresponding

markup.
Display Command Display Command
a=b a=b a sqrt {a}

a2 a^2 an a_n

∫ f  x dx int f(x) dx ∑ an sum a_n

a≤b a <= b ∞ infinity

a×b a times b x⋅y x cdot y

Greek characters
Greek characters (  ,  ,  ,  , etc) are common in mathematical
formulas. These characters are not available in the selection box or the
right-click menu. Fortunately, the markup for Greek characters is
simple: Type a % sign followed the name of the character, in English.
• To write a lowercase character, type the name of the character in
lowercase.
• To write an uppercase character, type the name of the character
in uppercase.
See the table below for some examples.
Lowercase Uppercase
%alpha   %ALPHA  A
%beta   %BETA  B
%gamma   %GAMMA  
%psi   %PSI  
%phi   %PHI  
%theta   %THETA  

8 Getting Started with Math

 A complete table of Greek characters is included in Chapter 16
Note (Math Objects) in the Writer Guide.

Another way to enter Greek characters is by using the catalog window.

Go to Tools > Catalog. The catalog window is shown in Figure 7.
Under Symbol Set, select Greek and double-click on a Greek letter
from the list.

Figure 7. Catalog - used for entering Greek characters

Example 2:  ≃ 3.14159
For this example we will suppose that:
• We want to enter the above formula (the value of pi rounded to 5
decimal places).
• We know the name of the Greek character (pi).
• But we do not know the markup associated with the ≃ symbol.

Step 1: Type % followed by the text pi. This displays the Greek
character  .
Step 2: Open the Selection window (View > Selection).
Step 3: The ≃ symbol is a relation, so we click on the relations button
. If you hover the mouse over this button you see the tooltip
Relations (Figure 8).

Entering a formula 9
 Figure 8. Tooltip indicates
the "Relations" button.
Step 4: Delete the <?> text and add 3.14159 at the end of the
equation. Hence we end up with the markup %pi simeq 3.14159. The
result is shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Final result

Customizations

Formula editor as a floating window

As seen in Figure 2, the formula editor can cover a large part of the
Writer window. To turn the formula editor into a floating window, do
this:
1) Hover the mouse over the editor frame, as shown in Figure 10.
2) Hold down the Control key and double-click.

10 Getting Started with Math

 Figure 10. Hold down the Control key and
double-click on the border of the math editor
to turn it into a floating window.

Figure 11 shows the result. You can make the floating window back
into an embedded frame, using the same steps. Hold down the Control
key and double-click the window frame.

Figure 11. Equation editor as a floating window

How can I make a formula bigger?

This is one of the most common questions people ask about OOoMath.
The answer is simple, but not intuitive:
1) Start the formula editor and go to Format > Font size.

Customizations 11
 Figure 12. Changing the font size for a formula
2) Select a larger font size under Base size (top-most entry), as
shown in Figure 12.

Figure 13. Edit Base size (top) to

make a formula bigger.

The result of this change is illustrated in Figure 13.

Figure 14. Result of changing

the base font size.

12 Getting Started with Math

Formula layout
The most difficult part of using OOoMath comes when writing
complicated equations. This section provides some advice about
writing complex formulas.

Brackets are your friends

OOoMath knows nothing about order of operation. You must use
brackets to state the order of operations explicitly. Consider the
following example:
Markup Result
2
2 over x + 1 1
x
2
2 over {x + 1}
x1

Equations over more than one line

Suppose you want to type an equation covering more than one line. For
x=3
example:
y=1
Your first reaction would be to simply press the Enter key. However, if
you press the Enter key, though the markup goes to a new line, the
resulting equation does not. You must type the newline command
explicitly. This is illustrated in the table below.
Markup Result
x = 3
x=3 y=1
y = 1
x = 3 newline x=3
y = 1 y=1

Formula layout 13
Common problem areas

How do I add limits to my sum/integral?

The sum and int commands can (optionally) take the parameters from
and to. These are used for lower and upper limits respectively. These
parameters can be used singly or together. Limits for integrals are
usually treated as subscripts and superscripts.
Markup Result
n
sum from k = 1 to n a_k ∑ ak
k =1

int from 0 to x f(t) dt x

x
or ∫ f t  dt or ∫0 f t dt
int_0^x f(t) dt 0

int from Re f ∫f
ℜ
∞
sum to infinity 2^{-n} ∑ 2−n

For more details on integrals and sums, see Chapter 16 (Math

Note Objects) in the Writer Guide.

Brackets with matrices look ugly!

For background, we start with an overview of the matrix command:
Markup Result
a b
matrix { a # b ## c # d }
c d

Rows are separated by two #’s and entries within each row are
Note separated by one #.

The first problem people have with matrices is that brackets do not
scale with the matrix:
Markup Result

( matrix { a # b ## c # d } ) a b 
c d

14 Getting Started with Math

OOoMath provides scalable brackets. That is, the brackets grow in size
to match the size of their contents. Use the commands left( and right)
to make scalable brackets.
Markup Result

left( matrix { a # b ## c # d } right)  

a
c
b
d

Tip Use left[ and right] to obtain square brackets.

How do I make a derivative?

Making derivatives essentially comes down to one trick: Tell OOo it’s a
fraction.
In other words, you have to use the over command. Combine this with
either the letter d (for a total derivative) or the partial command (for a
partial derivative) to achieve the effect of a derivative.
Markup Result
df
{df} over {dx}
dx
∂f
{partial f} over {partial y}
∂y
∂2 f
{partial^2 f} over {partial t^2}
∂t 2

Notice that we had to use squiggly brackets to make the

Note derivative.

Numbering equations
Equation numbering is one of OOoMath’s best hidden features. The
steps are simple, but obscure:
1) Start a new line.
2) Type fn and then press F3.
The fn is replaced by a numbered formula:
2
E=mc (2)

Common problem areas 15

Now you can double-click on the formula to edit it. For example, here
is the Riemann Zeta function:
∞
1
 z = ∑ z (3)
n=1 n
You can reference an equation (“as shown in Equation (2)”) with these
steps:
1) Insert > Cross-reference..
2) Click on the References tab (Figure 14).
3) Under Type, select Text.
4) Under Selection, pick the equation number.
5) Under Format, choose Reference.
6) Click Insert.
Done! If you later add more equations to the paper before the
referenced equation, all the equations will automatically renumber and
the cross-references will update.

Figure 15. Inserting a cross-reference to an equation number

Tip To insert the equation number without parenthesis around it,

choose Numbering instead of Reference under Format.

16 Getting Started with Math