Sirs/Madames I am hoping you can help me by advising me in use, or expanding the use, of the equation editor within “Pages” on a Catalina OS. Briefly, I use “Pages” with a Catalina OS in the course of submitting Algebra assignments for my freshman

Read the following Apple article, Add mathematical equations to your document in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

and follow the link in it to the blahtex translator user guide, as that will define the syntax and operators supported by the equation editor.

The equations that you generate in Pages may export to Word as images, not Word equations, and that may be an issue if the course guidelines are to use MS Word. I suggest you test this before submitting your algebra assignment to a faculty member using MS Word.

If you cannot generate your desired equation from those allowed La[TeX] operators supported by the blahtex converter, or by the equation editor's support for direct input MathML operators, then you are done in the Pages equation editor.

Here is an example of an augmented matrix done in the Pages v10.1 equation editor:

A = \begin{bmatrix}
1 & 3 & 2 \\
2 & 0 & 1 \\
5 & 2 & 2
\end{bmatrix}
,\quad B = 
\begin{bmatrix}
4 \\
3 \\
1
\end{bmatrix}
\quad
(A|B) = 
\left[
  \begin{matrix}
    1 & 3 & 2 \\
    2 & 0 & 1 \\
    5 & 2 & 2
  \end{matrix}
  \left|
    \,
    \begin{matrix}
      \color{red}4  \\
      \color{red}3 \\
      \color{red}1
    \end{matrix}
  \right.
\right]

Not exactly the amatrix operator from the amsmath package, but for appearances sake…

References:

• Augmented Matrix
• What's the best way to make an "augmented" coefficient matrix?

I also have the full MacTeX distribution installed (5GB +) and it has packages that would have precluded the lost time and articulated syntax of the Pages equation editor. Pages is entirely unaware of MacTeX though.

What are the other students in your class using? For Word, see

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/equation-editor-6eac7d71-3c74-437b-80d3-c7dea24fdf3f