Equation Editor Headaches

[schultza]

I was initially excited to hear about the Equation Editor, since I have been creating and saving my equations in a PowerPoint document, and doing screen shots of them to get images for my documents.

However, I am running into a couple hurdles that are preventing me from feeling comfortable recreating all my images using Equation Editor:

1. When I create a Custom Style in the Font Properties, it appears I can only apply the custom style to the currently open equation? When I add a new equation, the custom style is no longer available.

2. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to align things, especially text.
a. There is a "Using a Ruler" help topic, but after following the instructions ("...click on the ruler above the text area to display a horizontal line. Drag the pointer over the ruler or text area while holding down on the mouse button to move this line across the text area.") I think this may be designed just to assist in eye-balling where things are aligned, rather than moving text to a new location?

b. When text is in a numerator and denominator of a fraction, you can align the entire block, but not just portions of it.

c. When I use tables to try and align data, any empty cells in the table produce a question mark (?) when I generate my target.

To give you an idea of what I accomplished in PowerPoint within minutes (but took me a couple hours of learning and playing around in the Equation Editor to accomplish), I have attached one of my PowerPoint images. Any advice on these issues or using the Equation Editor would be most helpful!

[bobmathews]

Your first issue is easier to answer than the second. As you already discovered, MathFlow does allow creating a custom style and applying it to subsequent equations and expressions created with the MathFlow Editor (the equation editor included in Flare 6 and later). Although this capability is present in MathFlow, MadCap didn't implement this feature in Flare. If this is important to you, please let them know.

As to alignment, that's a bit more problematic and not as easily answered. There are no provisions in the MathML spec for aligning portions of a fraction, so there's really nothing short of a work-around to enable that. You've already suspected quite correctly that the answer to most alignment issues is to use a table. Within a table, there are elements <maligngroup/> and <malignmark/> that you can use to help align the contents of a table. The MathFlow Editor supports these 2 elements, but not via Design view. You can switch to Source view and add these elements to the appropriate spot in your table. For more information on these 2 elements, see the Presentation Element description on the Design Science website.

Thanks for pointing to the "Using a Ruler" Help topic. It should say "vertical" line, rather than "horizontal", so I'll fix that, but Help should also have a topic addressing alignment issues. I've also flagged that as an issue to be addressed in a future version of MathFlow. Doesn't help you now, but it helps us improve the product.

Finally, your point about empty cells showing a red question mark -- all I can say is that this is the way it indicates there's a cell there. The way around that is to insert a non-printing character, such as a space. That's a work-around rather than a solution, but for now that's one way to do it. Another way is to insert the table into the topic, then open the equation in Equation Editor, go to Source view, and delete all the <template/> elements. The second method is cleaner, but requires the extra step of re-opening the equation in the Equation Editor.

Bob Mathews
Design Science

[schultza]

Thank you, Bob! Your post has been extremely helpful, and lets me know I'm not going crazy trying to get things to work. I appreciate it!

[bobmathews]

BTW, I've attached a screen shot showing your example, and how it looks for me in the MadCap Equation Editor (MathFlow). Here's the code (copy it from here and paste it into the Equation Editor if you want):

Code: Select all

<math>
   <mrow>
      <mtable columnspacing='0.3em' rowlines='none solid none' columnalign='right left' width='auto'>
         <mtr>
            <mtd>
               <mtext> </mtext>
            </mtd>
            <mtd>
               <mtext>Productive Hours*</mtext>
            </mtd>
         </mtr>
         <mtr>
            <mtd>
               <mo>+</mo>
            </mtd>
            <mtd>
               <mtext>Non-Productive Hours*</mtext>
            </mtd>
         </mtr>
         <mtr>
            <mtd>
               <mtext> </mtext>
            </mtd>
            <mtd>
               <mtext>Non-Ovt Hours</mtext>
            </mtd>
         </mtr>
      </mtable>
   </mrow>
</math>

[schultza]

Totally, totally rocks! Can't wait to give this a whirl.

[schultza]

I created an enhancement request (Case 27803) for the issue with custom font styles not being available across all inserted equations.

[schultza]

I worked with MadCap Support, and they discovered that the reason fonts were not working is because you have to apply them through the style sheet. There is a style MadCap|Equation.

Note that even with this style configured, I only saw the equation font change in the built output -- when working with the topics and topic previews the equations will look the same as always.

[bobmathews]

That's good information. Thanks for the follow-up.