Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

dmvaldman

Notice the subtlety. The first example on the site is:

sum_(i=1)^n i^3=((n(n+1))/2)^2

To render this in LateX as it is shown would be

\sum_{i = 0}^n i^3 = \bigg( \frac{n(n+1)}{2} \bigg)^2

No fracts, just "/", no parenthesis enlarging with "\bigg", no slashes or brackets.

Looks pretty nice :-)

View on HN

One may use \left( and \right) to get automatically-sized brackets.

What's more, you can use a package like \usepackage{physics} which includes several convenience macros like \qty( [...] ) as a shorthand to \left( [...] \right). To go yet another step further, define something like \newcommand{\p}{\qty} to shorten the notation to simply dropping a \p before your delimiters to autosize them.

None of those things are difficult. And don't say 'no slashes or brackets'. Swapping `\sum_{..}` for `sum_(..)` isn't reducing the number of brackets, and in fact I find the top harder to read as it has more of just one type of bracket.

>None of those things are difficult.

But all of these things distract from the main task.

And you also have to learn LaTeX, which many might not care for.

Well if your work involves typing equations it's implied that you understand LaTeX.

If you work involves rare occasions of having to type equations, it doesn't.

Nobody's work involves that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com