Alternatively, you can insert a special alignment character into your equations, and align them to that. In Word 2003 and before, this is done from the Format menu when editing a formula: you can align left, right or centre, to the equals or to a dot. Click in the top box and type 1, and the bottom box to insert the square root template, then type 2 and you have one over the square root of two.Ī common way to write equations is to have a block of them one after the other on the page, with all their equals signs vertically aligned. For example, if you insert the fraction template, you see a dotted box above a line, above another dotted box. Other items on the toolbar are “templates” that consist of one or more symbols and dotted boxes: each dotted box can hold letters, numbers, symbols or, indeed, other templates. You can type letters and numbers from the keyboard, but other symbols such as Greek characters or mathematical symbols like ≠ (not equal to), ÷ (divide), (plus minus) and (identical to) need to be selected from the toolbar. Click a button and you get a pop-up panel containing a host of further buttons, hovering over which again puts a description on the status bar, far from where you’re currently looking. Hover over a button and the status bar will give you a brief description of what it does, but these descriptions are cryptic in the extreme, saying things like “Relational symbols” or “Fences templates”. Whenever you insert or edit an equation, the document window flickers alarmingly, all the menus change, the standard toolbars are removed and you’re left with a thick toolbar covered in weird-looking buttons.
Equation editor 3.0 showing weird symbol install#
In Word 2003 and earlier, you need to go to the Insert | Object… dialog and choose Microsoft Equation 3.0 and, because it’s an optional extra, you may even have to install it before use.