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How To Enter Equations Quickly In Class?
AdmiralXyz writes "I'm a university student, and I like to take notes on my (non-tablet) computer whenever possible, so it's easier to sort, categorize, and search through them later. Trouble is, I'm going into higher and higher math classes, and typing "f_X(x) = integral(-infinity, infinity, f(x,y) dy)" just isn't cutting it anymore: I need a way to get real-looking equations into my notes. I'm not particular about the details, the only requirement is that I need to keep up with the lecture, so it has to be fast, fast, fast. Straight LaTeX is way too slow, and Microsoft's Equation Editor isn't even worth mentioning. The platform is not a concern (I'm on a MacBook Pro and can run either Windows or Ubuntu in a virtual box if need be), but the less of a hit to battery life, the better. I've looked at several dedicated equation editing programs, but none of them, or their reviews, make any mention of speed. I've even thought about investing in a low-end Wacom tablet (does anyone know if there are ultra-cheap graphics tablets designed for non-artists?), but I figured I'd see if anyone at Slashdot has a better solution."
I used LyX quite a bit; the equation editor is pretty quick to work with (better than MS Equation Editor or similar addons).
LyX is generally much faster than straight LaTeX - and there's a much shallower learning curve.
Additionally, LyX works on pretty much whatever platform you want to use.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
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Pencil/paper and digitizing later should be fine.
If you do choose to invest in a Wacom tablet, Windows 7 comes with a math input panel:
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2008/10/29/windows-7-math-input-panel-screenshots
It's not very usable with a mouse, though.
Um... I didn't do it!
I encountered this problem too during my last year and a half in uni, so I used a low-tech solution. When I needed to put an equation in my notes, I would type "See EQ. 1-1" and fill up a piece of paper with equations. Later on (that day or the next), while reviewing my notes I would look up the eq on my sheet and type it into my notes the correct way.
Windows 7 now features a math input panel, which converts handwritten mathematics to MathML. You can see screenshots at this link: http://www.gottabemobile.com/2008/10/29/windows-7-math-input-panel-screenshots
"The urge to fly from modern systems, instead of moving through them to even greater, fairer things is, I think, an indi
http://www.wolfram.com/products/
is a lot of fun to play with, does computation & all kinds of neat tricks in addition to typesetting.
$139 for the student version, available for the Mac.
... a product called MathCad 15 years ago. I seem to recall they had a free student version. Looks like they have a 30 day trial, and a $60 student version if it suits your purposes.
Ingredients: Turkey, Mechanically Separated Turkey, Water, Salt, Flavour.
I don't know if it is up to the speed you need, but the equation editor in LyX is pretty darn cool.
http://www.lyx.org/
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I've been using Wolfram Mathematica to take class notes and exams for years. By using the keyboard shortcuts you can easily keep up with the class. You can also have instant interactive graphs which will be much easier to understand than anything a professor could draw on a board, although it's not like my professors write on the board as they use Mathematica or Matlab to teach the class as well. This is at a private university in Mexico.
Use the auctex mode in emacs, which *greatly* reduces the number of keystrokes you need.
That combined with x-symbol let me take notes in graduate math classes for an experiment.
I took all of my notes throughout university (including engineering courses) using OpenOffice.org. The equation editor in OpenOffice is easy-to-learn, fast (as in, no mouse use required and the keystrokes are all sane), and the completed equations look great. (By default, there isn't a keyboard shortcut for inserting a new equation, so you'll need to manually assign one—I used Ctrl-Shift-F, if I remember correctly.
Your example would almost work as is; it would be entered as:
f_x (x) = int from -infinity to infinity f (x, y) dy
Or, if you prefer your parentheses to stretch (in case you have fractions inside, or what have you):
f_x left ( x right ) = int from -infinity to infinity f left ( x, y right ) dy
Either way, it comes out looking very nice. The one thing that takes some getting used to is that you need to make liberal use of whitespace (e.g. between f and the opening parenthesis of the function), otherwise things will occasionally come out looking a little strange. The best part is, when you don't know what you need to type for a particular symbol, you can select it from the menu and OO will insert the plaintext code, which makes it very easy to learn the code for new items.
I was disabled and taking notes was VERY slow for me if I tried writing. I used a word processor WP or MS Word (I don't remember which one) to take notes. I had a similar problem until I discovered that I could map an entire phrase into a single keystroke. For example: "ALT + CTRL + F " could be "f(X) = " You could even be more elaborate because certain phrases are used time and time again in lectures. My longest remapping was 20 characters. For different classes, I had completely different keystroke mappings. Just be careful not to remap the standard keystrokes.
This technique worked for me all though grad school. I also used a tape recorder (get the professors permission first) and reviewed my notes after class to make sure I got it all.
The pulse smart pen is far better. I tried the Wacom bluetooth tablet but the problem is that you cannot see what you write. If you use the Pulse Smartpen then it acts like a real pen - so you can see exactly what you have written - and as well as recording exactly what you wrote it records audio as well so you end up with a document that you can click on to hear what was being said at the time that you wrote that bit of text.
The only downside is that it needs special paper which you can buy in notebook form or which you can print yourself using a laser printer. The windows version has some extra software you can buy to perform OCR on your handwriting but since I have a Mac I have no idea how good it is. There is even an open SDK for you to develop your own applications for it but it unfortunately only supports Java.
I used Infty Editor in my classes - I think it's based on LaTeX but, it was pretty quick. I didn't use it to take notes in realtime though, so I can't tell you how successful that would be. http://www.inftyproject.org/en/software.html