Math Equation in OpenOffice/StarOffice

Submitted by dig on Tue, 2007-07-10 02:59.
masstransfereqn7so8.png

StarOffice to duplicate equations created in FrameMaker

Monday 9JULY2007

My Masters Thesis was produced with Microsoft Word and crash after crash taught me to keep many copies and back-up often. Figures moving about the document and tables that got rearranged simply by closing and opening the document gave me fits. I used Adobe Framemaker for my Ph.D dissertation. Framemaker is a stable product and it became apparent it is mature product as the dissertation grew. It was a learning experience at times, but it is a fine product.

Not many (are there any?) journals accept Framemaker format for submitting articles. The primary target of this manuscript is Soil Science Society of America Journal and they want both a PDF and a Microsoft Word copy of the manuscript. The difficulty with Framemaker is that although it will save as Microsoft Word the equations do not translate. So, I needed to write the equations again. I choose to use StarOffice.

I have been using StarOffice for several years now and it is a fine product. I choose to use StarOffice because I have had some experience in using Microsoft Words MathType, and while MathType served well in the past, I did not remember it to be particularly fun. I wanted to stick with StarOffice, and then convert to Microsoft Word as the final product.

So, today I tackled writing math equations in StarOffice to duplicate equations in my FrameMaker dissertation and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to construct the equations. The help documentation is spartan but, you guessed it, helpful. I found Solveig Hauglands' blogs helpful as well http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/equations/index.html. The OpenOffice Documentation was also helpful.

I ran into two issues. The first was that on my notebook when I went to insert the equation the handy little graphical selection window did not open. I found that a text version could be opened by right clicking in the editing window that is open at the bottom of the page. Then I ran into a monster intragal and could not seem to get it. I had to fire up the Linux desktop and OpenOffice to get that cute little graphical selection window to do it.

pedon mass flux gif

Here is the final code:

{bar m} _{(j,flux)}{}^{(g{}cm^{-2})}=%rho_{p}{{C_{(j,p)} over 100}} (int from{Z=0} to{Z=D_{(j,w)}-CF} {%tau_{(j,w)}}z)dz

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and in Latex... ?

Submitted by dylan on Tue, 2007-07-10 17:22.

Interesting. the application mk4ht can convert latex to ooMath. It looks like the ooMath is very close to the format used in Latex, and should be a simple visual conversion. Does this look right:

\bar{m}_{(j,flux)}^{g\timescm^{-2}} = \rho_{p} \frac{C_{(j,p)}} {100}


\int_{z=0}^{z=D_{(j,w)}} \tau_{(j,w)} z dz

?

Close but no cigar, yet

Submitted by dig on Wed, 2007-07-11 02:15.

Looks like this LaTeX version is similar to the inline version produced my OO/SO Math Equation. However, I wanted the limits over and under the int symbol, parentheses around the int function, the superscript units for the mas transfer function (m) is out of whack, and it needed to be wrapped in display math mode "\[...\]".

this is closer but the mass transfer units are still out of whack and the limits are not correct

\[ \bar{m}_{(j,flux)}^{g\timescm^{-2}} = \rho_{p} \frac{C_{(j,p)}} {100}( \int_{z=0}^{z=D_{(j,w)}} \tau_{(j,w)} z) dz \]

Some more ideas

Submitted by dylan on Wed, 2007-07-11 05:19.

Some tips:

  • a simpler way to use math mode is with $ equation stuff here ... $
  • or, use the equation environment:
    \begin{equation}
    \label{something}

    y \approx x^{2}

    \end{equation}

  • to make a better looking integral or summationyou can do: \int\limits_{0}^{1}
  • finally you can add a little extra space in front of the dx term of the integral with something like this: $ \int x\, \mathrm{d}x $
  • to add the parenthesis around the integral you can probably enclose the \int ... within \left( ... \right)

I think that this might be the correct syntax, or at least close:

(j,flux)^{g\times cm^{-2}} = \rho_{p} \frac{C_{(j,p)}}{100} \left( \int\limits_{z=0}^{z=D_{(j,w)}} \tau_{(j,w)} z\, \mathrm{d} z \right)

also: quick snapshots of a single page of PDF can be made with imagemagick like:

# convert page 16 of 'thesis.pdf' into a PNG file called 'p.png' at 150 DPI
convert -density 150 thesis.pdf[16] p.png