Problems with Equation editor

[Michael Moser]

I'm not sure if this is the best news group for questions re. Word's
built-in equation editor. If you know a better forum: please advise!

If one has long textual subscripts like (in absence of any layout
features in ASCII text let uppercase here be characters in math-style
and lower-case be characters Text-style):

X = Ylong_subscript_here + Zanother_long_ name_here

For some strange reason equation editor tears subscripts, that contain
more than 10 characters appart and inserts some long white space after
each 10th character, thus yielding very odd looking formulas that look
like:

X = Ylong_subsc ript_here + Zanother_ot her _name_h ere
(Hope I could make myself clear here...)

In fact, the textual fragments don't even need to be in sub- or
superscript. Some simple tests suggest that any text that is longer than
10 chars is split up into chunks of 10 chars maximum.

Any idea, why this is so and how one can prevent texts from being split
like this?

Michael

PS.: Alas, I can't define the text as Math, either, because it contains
the sylables "sin" and "det" which are then false "recognized" as sine
and determinant. ||-(

 

[anon k]

I'm not sure if this is the best news group for questions re. Word's
built-in equation editor. If you know a better forum: please advise!

If one has long textual subscripts like (in absence of any layout
features in ASCII text let uppercase here be characters in math-style
and lower-case be characters Text-style):

X = Ylong_subscript_here + Zanother_long_ name_here

For some strange reason equation editor tears subscripts, that contain
more than 10 characters appart and inserts some long white space after
each 10th character, thus yielding very odd looking formulas that look
like:

X = Ylong_subsc ript_here + Zanother_ot her _name_h ere
(Hope I could make myself clear here...)

In fact, the textual fragments don't even need to be in sub- or
superscript. Some simple tests suggest that any text that is longer than
10 chars is split up into chunks of 10 chars maximum.

Any idea, why this is so and how one can prevent texts from being split
like this?

Michael

How about using an equation field? They're generally not hard to write
unless you have things like nested matrices to describe. Mathematicians
and their printers have ensured that 'normal' mathematical text is, in
general, easy to write and compose.

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Michael

I'm not sure if this is the best news group for questions re. Word's
built-in equation editor. If you know a better forum: please advise!

If one has long textual subscripts like (in absence of any layout
features in ASCII text let uppercase here be characters in math-style
and lower-case be characters Text-style):

X = Ylong_subscript_here + Zanother_long_ name_here

For some strange reason equation editor tears subscripts, that contain
more than 10 characters appart and inserts some long white space after
each 10th character, thus yielding very odd looking formulas that look
like:

X = Ylong_subsc ript_here + Zanother_ot her _name_h ere
(Hope I could make myself clear here...)

Are you positive that the things that get split apart are in text style?
For instance, when you type "cosx", EE will split this to "cos x" if
it's not in text style (cosinus).

HTH
Robert

 

[Michael Moser]

...
Are you positive that the things that get split apart are in text
style? For instance, when you type "cosx", EE will split this to "cos
x" if it's not in text style (cosinus).

Yes, I am absolutely positive that they are in text style for exactly
that reason. One of the subscripts contained an "sin" amidst the word
and so was falsely split, too. So I changed the subscripts to text
style. But that tears things appart in the peculiar way decribed, too..

Michael

 

[Michael Moser]

...
How about using an equation field? They're generally not hard to
write unless you have things like nested matrices to describe.
Mathematicians and their printers have ensured that 'normal'
mathematical text is, in general, easy to write and compose.

Tried using an equation field but for some reasons it doesn't seem to
recognize the misc. keywords that are described in help (\i \su...(),
\do...(), etc.)

And what's worse: it keeps crashing on me. Whenever I click on the field
to edit it Word immediately dies. Too bad that Word is so buggy...

Michael

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This is not normal. Possibly the document is corrupt; possibly the font is
corrupt; possibly Normal.dot is corrupt.

 

[Michael Moser]

This is not normal. Possibly the document is corrupt; possibly the
font is
corrupt; possibly Normal.dot is corrupt.

Well, maybe, possible. But if I have learned something after all thoese
year using word then this: Alas, this *is* normal. Esp. the fact, that
word keeps corrupting documents and templates, *is* "normal"! But that's
a different story. :-(

Michael

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

FWIW, in 14 years of using (almost) every version of Word since Word 2.0, I
have *never* had a corrupted Normal.dot. I think I did have a corrupted Data
key *once* (another time that I thought that was the problem, it turned out
that the problem was actually caused by an add-in). And the only corrupted
documents I've ever seen were once I got from others (usually converted from
WordPerfect).

 

[anon k]

Tried using an equation field but for some reasons it doesn't seem to
recognize the misc. keywords that are described in help (\i \su...(),
\do...(), etc.)

And what's worse: it keeps crashing on me. Whenever I click on the field
to edit it Word immediately dies. Too bad that Word is so buggy...

I've had only one problem with equation fields: they are sometimes very
sensitive to spaces in the formula. When I'm editing, a missed space
sometimes leads the field to collapse into some non-printing state.
Expanding it out and finding the spot that's missing its space fixes
that. Just why this is, I still don't know.

 

[Michael Moser]

Well - lucky you then!

I am able to create and edit an equation field in a newly created, empty
document, but not in the one, I am currently working on.
A I said - I never managed to work on a file over a longer period and
have it NOT corrupted. Not that I am doing strange things to it, but
occasionally word simply crashes (e.g. when moving images around or
editing formulas) and I guess, that then leaves me with recovered and -
presumably - corrupted files. Are there any tools to "decorrupt" a file?
Because, clearly, starting over is NOT an option!

Michael

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm. See also
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm

 

[Michael Moser]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm. See also
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm

Thanks - good stuff! Seems, that I'm not the only one whose docs get
corrupted now and then...

Michael