Friday, September 14, 2012
MathType : Software Review
MathType is a specialized software which enables typing out of complex mathematical formulae and expressions which cannot easily written on popular text editors like MS Words or even MS Excel.
Some Useful Features of MathType
The most remarkable feature of MathType is its intuitive and user friendly yet immensely powerful simplistic user interface. There are several modes such as derivatives, matrices, statistics, algebra etc with each mode having a series of one-click expression entry options for commonly used expressions.
There are also a series of tabs for easily entering all sorts of symbols and commonly used Greek letters. In this regard it may be worth noting that though MS Word definitely boasts of a much more exhaustive set of foreign characters and symbols (though many of them find NO use in writing mathematical expressions), it is far easier to find and properly use them on MathType.
Another impressive feature of MathType is the highly efficient way in which they have dealt with superscripts and subscripts and even sub-subscripts. This feature is far superior than any other word editor I have used either online or otherwise. In fact, in many ways the ability of MathType to seamlessly handle scripts of different sizes and at different realtive positions simultaneously is the corner stone of its success.
The matrix/vectors of any dimension can also be suitably represented with MathType.
Expressions involving summation and various types of integration (surface,volume,line etc) can also be easily written using MathType.
Disadvantages of MathType
Though MathType is a highly efficient software and fits its product description perfectly, yet its nearly $100 price tag is quite exorbitant.
Also, personally I felt its integration with MS Words could have been considerably better as it is quite a hassle to rectify the typos once you have pasted to Words. Further, alignment of the MathType symbols with the Words documents is also not always perfect.
Last but definitely not the least not all online publishing platforms support Math Type, and I am talking major sites such as Hubpages, and to the best of my knowledge even Blogger!
Some Useful Features of MathType
The most remarkable feature of MathType is its intuitive and user friendly yet immensely powerful simplistic user interface. There are several modes such as derivatives, matrices, statistics, algebra etc with each mode having a series of one-click expression entry options for commonly used expressions.
There are also a series of tabs for easily entering all sorts of symbols and commonly used Greek letters. In this regard it may be worth noting that though MS Word definitely boasts of a much more exhaustive set of foreign characters and symbols (though many of them find NO use in writing mathematical expressions), it is far easier to find and properly use them on MathType.
Another impressive feature of MathType is the highly efficient way in which they have dealt with superscripts and subscripts and even sub-subscripts. This feature is far superior than any other word editor I have used either online or otherwise. In fact, in many ways the ability of MathType to seamlessly handle scripts of different sizes and at different realtive positions simultaneously is the corner stone of its success.
The matrix/vectors of any dimension can also be suitably represented with MathType.
Expressions involving summation and various types of integration (surface,volume,line etc) can also be easily written using MathType.
Disadvantages of MathType
Though MathType is a highly efficient software and fits its product description perfectly, yet its nearly $100 price tag is quite exorbitant.
Also, personally I felt its integration with MS Words could have been considerably better as it is quite a hassle to rectify the typos once you have pasted to Words. Further, alignment of the MathType symbols with the Words documents is also not always perfect.
Last but definitely not the least not all online publishing platforms support Math Type, and I am talking major sites such as Hubpages, and to the best of my knowledge even Blogger!
