Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 54197
Why not use LaTeX-style formula expressions
Last modified: 2009-10-19 22:11:04 UTC
I am wondering why OO Formula Editor does not use a LaTeX style language to describe mathematical formulas. There are several reasons to (re-)use them: 1. Most people heavily using formulas in their publications already know LaTeX style formulas. This would really ease the migration to OpenOffice for them, since they can reuse their knowledge. 2. LaTeX formulas are much more powerful than that what is currently available in OO Formula Editor. Why re-inventing the wheel? Regards, Dominik
Please look for any known issues about that. Else pass to requirements. Thanks.
transferring to Jack.
could not find any known issues about this. this issue requires an improvement in the formular editor so reassigned to requirements
For people writing scientific papers (like me) the lack of a powerful Formula Editors in OpenOffice and MS-Word are a real show stoppers. Especially the handling of formulas is laborous. I am missing the possibility to use Inline-Formulas which are automatically adapted to style changes. Example: In LaTeX I can simply write "Einstein said: $E=mc^2$" and I get my formula inline. In OpenOffice/Word I have to write "Einstein said: " and then to go through the menues (Insert -> Object -> Formula) to create an Formula Object and then I put in "E=mc^2" (OpenOffice Formula have already some similarities to LaTex Formulas). When I now change the text style in OpenOffice/Word from 12pt to 10pt then I have to go manually through all formulas and change them to 10pt too. That's no fun. I do not have this problem in LaTeX. Inline formulars are important since if you use formulas in a paper you have often sentence like: "Given is $n \in \mathbb{N}$ which is the number of votes. $V = \{v_1, ... v_n\}$ is the set of all votes. Each $v_i$ with $i \in \{1, ..., n\}$ is bla bla...". In such cases Formula Handling with OpenOffice is often really hard. Maybe you could create a shortcut to enter the formula editor and one to leave it after inserting the formula. So that I can type in my formulas with out using the mouse. What I want to conclude is: A powerful and user-friendly Formula Editor in OpenOffice would be a good argument for using OpenOffice in the scientific community.
Dupe of issue 2864?
Yes, issue 2864 comes to the same two conclusions: a) LaTeX-style formulas would improve OO and b) OO should provide inline-formulas to ease formula creation in middle of the text without need of using the mouse.
From issue 72374, desc 4: ------- Additional comments from cloph Wed Dec 13 12:05:36 +0000 2006 ------- see http://ooolatex.sourceforge.net for an intermediate solution
As per desc 7, could you mark this issue as duplicate of issue 2864? Thank you. PS: Sorry, desc 8 wasn't intended to be posted here but in issue 2864 instead.
Marking as dup. *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 2864 ***
Closing dup.