Using services to insert LaTeX equations

This is probably not the sort of perfect solution you are looking for, but it would beat inserting all the symbols.

If it were me, I would just take screen shots of them and put them in a pictures. Go over to your Pages document were you have put in using LaTex, hold down the command and shift keys and press 4. Then drag through your equation. It creates a png file of it on your desktop. Pick it up from your desktop with the mouse and lay it on top of your text. Put in enough spaces in your text so that it all looks good, and all should be well.

And copying from Pages to Keynote doesn't work either? I don't have those installed on my computer, so I can't test, but I can try to help with a solution.

Is the key that you want to be able to "edit" the equation after you paste it OR do you just want it simply displayed on the screen without a rectangle around it?

Ok, so the optimal solution is one that allows a text flow around an image like Pages (and iWeb) does.

Hi Eric,

Text and images can coexist in most word processing apps such as Pages, TextEdit, Word as well as with HTML. As Kyn pointed out, the text simply flows around the image. However in layout and presentation apps text and images are assigned as separate objects. As such it is not possible to imbed an image in a text object. This is also the way it works in Powerpoint, Photoshop and Illustrator. So I doubt that Keynote will ever have this ability.

One solution is to type the entire paragraph or sentence in LaTeXit and render the equation along with the rest of the text. That way the text and the equation will included in the PDF image. You just need to place "$" signs around the equation and click the "Text" tab in the main window of LaTeXit. For example:

Here we will use the Schrodinger equation, $-\frac{\hbar^{2}}{2m}\nabla^{2}\Psi+V\Psi=E\Psi$, in a sentence.

Hope that helps,

Dave

A related LaTeX question:

How do I get multiple equations, one per line, as a single PDF object? (I'm using LaTeXiT.) I'm not doing much that's complicated ((grade 9 maths) but I want to show multiple steps in a solution...

Hi Robert,

You will need to use the "Eqnarray" tab in LaTeXiT to create multiline equations. Use a double-backslash \\ for each new line. To get the equations to line up, place ampersands && around the = signs. For example:

c^2 &=& (a - b)^2 + 2ab \\
&=& a^2 - 2ab + b^2 + 2ab \\
&=& a^2 + b^2

Pretty nifty!

One extra bit of advice. Drag the LaTeX rendered equation/sentence to the desktop. It will save as a PDF file that can be editted in LaTeXit by double-clicking. Very useful to have around if you might need to edit the equation.

Cheers,
AstroBryGuy

If there was a LaTeX app that was LinkBack compatible (and if there was a LinkBack plugin for Keynote 3 🙂 that'd be a decent workarounnd as well.

Unfortunately, there isn't one that I know of for either.

As to the Latex App there is LateXiT:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/latexit.html
- but the LinkBack Plugin for keynote 3 is still missing. See
http://commons.ucalgary.ca/~king/projects/keynoteplugins/linkback/

JoJo

I have exactly the same problem as the original poster and I haven't found an acceptable solution. I end up using LaTeXiT only for "display-style" equations that are positioned separately from the text.

As Dave pointed out above, fundamentally what is necessary is to be able to embed a PDF in a text object. Even if Powerpoint, Photoshop and Illustrator don't have this feature either, I'm sure Apple could implemented it if they wanted to. So how about sending them some feedback? I've just done so myself.

I just launch the Equation Editor from either AppleWorks or MS Office, and leave it open on the desktop. When I need an equation, I just copy/paste from EE to KN. If I want something other than black text, I cycle the copy through GraphicConverter to make a "colorized" PNG (to retain transparency) for insertion into KN.