Help: a good, free formula writing software.

[suneel112]

I know this doesn't really belong here, but I am currently in the process of writing a white paper on beacon navigation for Chief Delphi (since it is probably one of those FIRST things that stays). One of the problems is that my white paper contains a lot of formulas to show the MATH of Beacon Navigation. I have previously used photoshop to do formulas, but it is tedious and takes a very long time. I would like to know if there is any good, free software out there to write formulas. I tried Abacus (the free version), but it won't let me do anything.
Please post suggestions. Thanks,

suneel112

[Astronouth7303]

You can try MediaWiki's LaTeX parser. If you have signed up on FIRSTwiki, add /Beacon_math to the end of the URL. If your settings are correct, when you view the page the math (between <math> tags) will be in PNG format.

[Manoel]

Microsoft Equation, although not the best option, is probably already installed in your system (if you have MS Office).
You can also try Maple, it is much much more than just a simple formula writer, buy you won't regret learning all its features.

[Venkatesh]

OpenOffice Equation Editor.

I have written up some rather complicated stuff, such as the derivation for curvature and mean curvature of a 3D solid using just that. It is an excellent tool, and can export in PDF format. It pulverizes poor Equation Editor from MS.

[Joe Ross]

What program are you writing the paper with?

As Manoel said, word has a very basic equation editor built in. I don't like using it very much as it is clunky to me.

OpenOffice has a much better equation editor, in my opinion.

LaTeX is often used for many journals and such and has a very powerful equation parser. It generates the equations for FIRSTwiki, like Jamie said. It's something that's well worth learning if you plan to do more of this type of thing. Ian Mackenzie used LaTeX with a few equations for his whitepaper on 1114's drive train: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pa...le&paperid=354


Note that all three solutions require that you use their program to write your paper (with the possible exception of LaTeX), which is why my first question is what you are using currently.