[OS X TeX] formula with words

[Ross Moore]

Hi Vijay,

On 31/08/2007, at 2:16 AM, Vijay Kaul wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:15:30 -0400, Tim Brophy <timbrophy at mac.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Bridget,
>>
>> Try
>>
>> $$\frac{\text{Skill Variety } + \text{ Task Identity } + \text 
>> { Task Significance}}{3} = \text{ Autonomy } \times \text 
>> { Feedback}$$
>>
>> with the amsmath package loaded.
>
> Does the amsmath package fix the "double dollar sign"? If not (and  
> new users should get into the habbit of this), using "\[" and "\]"  
> is better.

Please, what do you mean by "fix" here?

$$ works fine with  amsmath loaded, but I agree that \[ ... \]
is marginally superior -- but only for the purposes of
error-checking (e.g. of unclosed/malformed environments),
and perhaps a small change to the amount of space preceding
the display. This is added already by LaTeX.

Actually, amsmath  makes \[ be just a shorthand notation
for  \begin{equation*} , with corresponding  \end  by \] .
This means that you'll inherit some tricky coding with regard
to labels and placement of tags (e.g., if the equations are
too wide). But this is stuff that you would not be expecting
to need when you choose  $$ ... $$  as the math delimiters.

Ultimately, \[  , \begin{equation}  , \begin{equation*}
and other displayed-math environments  all use TeX's $$ ... $$
anyway, to actually place the environment's contents.
So it certainly should work OK without all the extra wrapping
that LaTeX allows.


If there is some problem that you know about, I'd like
to know what it is, and the kind of "fix" that you think
is needed.


>
> -- 
> Vijay


Hope this helps,

	Ross

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross Moore                                         ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                             office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                               tel: +61 +2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia  2109                            fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
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