[OS X TeX] Equation full of Brackets

[Justin C. Walker]

On Jul 3, 2007, at 14:14 , Richard J Benish wrote:

> What's the best way to get a complicated equation, full of  
> fractions, square roots and such right the first time?
>
> I have a 1988 HP calculator with about 1k of memory into which I  
> can enter this kind of equation and if I miss a bracket it takes me  
> right to the spot. Piece of cake. Not so Tex.
>
> What I do is take a screen shot, print it, get out about 7  
> different color highlighters, make myself a cup of tea and study  
> the thing. This still usually fails the first attempt.
>
> Surely being a Tex user doesn't mean that I'm supposed to get USED  
> to this? Does it? Are there any plans to make the program  
> friendlier for this task? Should I have to use real (hard and wet)  
> highlighters when they could be built into the program?

One uses whatever works :-}

Many of the editors available (BBEdit, TextWrangler, TeXShop,  
emacs, ...) will "match" brackets for you, by moving the cursor to,  
or highlighting, a corresponding opening bracket when you type the  
closing bracket.  In addition, the "GUI" editors may select a  
complete bracketed string when multi-clicking one or the other of the  
brackets (generally, (), [], and {}).

Justin

--
Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-at-Large
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