A cool new function that's in Pages 6.1 on
the Mac is the ability to insert mathematical
equations.
You can do this using the Insert Equation
Function.
When you do that this little dialogue box
that comes up here, Edit Equation, and it
tells you you can use two different formats.
One is called LaTeX and the other MathML.
Now they both very different from each other
but they do have the similarity in that you
can type normal text that then is translated
into something that looks like an equation.
For instance, using LaTeX we can use powers.
So for instance if you wanted to say like
nine squared you could type 9 and then a caret
symbol which on American keyboards is Shift
6, and then 2.
Then I hit Insert but even before I do so
I can see the representation of the function
right there.
I hit Insert and I get this here.
This special little box that flows in with
the text.
If I double click it I can edit it again.
So it's not just normal characters there.
It's a special type of element.
Now you can do lots of different things.
For instance instead of a caret I can do underscore
which is Shift and then dash on American keyboards
and you can see if puts the number down a
little bit.
I can also do other things like for instance
the square root function is backslash sqrt
and then a left bracket which is Shift and
the left curly bracket on American keyboards
and then you can put a number and then the
right curly bracket there and you get square
root 9.
Also you can do fractions.
So you can do backslash frac and then you
have to do two numbers in curly brackets,
let's say 7 and 28.
Now I get a fraction there.
It's not as easy as just the little 1/2 or
1/3 that you get with some fonts.
This is actually any kind of fraction you
want.
So I can hit Update here and you can see it's
a special character here with this fraction.
You can combine this for all sorts of things.
So I could put instead of 28 for instance
I can do backslash square root and then curly
bracket 28 in there.
You can see it's 7 over square root of 28.
So there's a lot of different things that
you can do with LaTeX.
It is spelled LaTeX and it's got a capital
T and a capital X.
You can search the internet.
There's tons of tutorials for using this because
this has been used by lots of different software
for decades to type mathematical equations.
So if you want to learn more about it just
do some tutorials that are online that go
into detail.
There's references.
Even entire books that are written about how
to use this type of thing to do mathematical
equations.
If you're using some software that generates
mathematical equations quite often you can
export an equation in LaTeX format and then
you can paste it here to include it in Pages.
Likewise, MathML is the same kind of thing
except it's a little more complex.
So let's take a look at the Wikipedia pages
for both of these.
Here's LaTeX and you've got some examples
here how LaTeX looks.
You can see some complex examples there.
You've got some history of it.
MathML is far harder to actually type out.
It looks like html but it's special for math.
So it's pretty complex.
It's not the sort of thing that you would
normally type on your own.
Normally you would use a special app that
generates equations or maybe you find an equation
somewhere and they would include a link to
a MathML version of it.
Then you would copy and paste.
So, for instance, here in Wikipedia there's
an example.
I'm going to select that and copy it, go over
to Pages again, and paste it in there.
You can see it interprets it perfectly.
There's that equation just as it was represented
on Wikipedia.
So you have those two different options for
typing complex mathematical equations and
then using them in Pages.
You can also do this in Numbers and Keynote
as well.
They work just like regular things.
I can copy and paste the equation there.
You can see I've got it in a different block.
I can center it.
All sorts of things.
I can't really style it in anyway because
if I change the font you can see it's not
going to do anything.
It's relying on the fact that it's a good
font for representing some of the math stuff
here.
But you can change things like the size for
instance if you want.
So you can play around with that.
It's a great addition for anybody that needs
to do work that includes math equations in
the Pages documents.
