[Blindmath] Compiling and Debugging LaTeX Documents

[Alysha]

Hi list,
I've had relative success teaching myself to read LaTeX content, but I'm now trying to work on figuring out the best ways to write mathematical documents as well. I was wondering what you have found to be the most accessible ways of doing this. I've started playing around a bit with TeXnicCenter, and I've found most of its features to be pretty easy to use. Unfortunately though, writing code is never as easy as reading it, and I've found it difficult to read error messages and figure out which lines they reference when compiling my documents. The only way I've found of doing this in my short time of experimenting is to open the log file, but I still don't see line numbers there, and it's full of tons of information which I don't particularly understand.

My initial thoughts were to practice writing entire documents in LaTeX, but I think I remember someone mentioning a way to use MathType and Word and only enter the equations themselves in LaTeX. Have any of you had better success with this method? Do you know any other tips that might be helpful?

Thanks,
Alysha