[Blindmath] Compiling and Debugging LaTeX Documents

[Birkir R. Gunnarsson]

Alysha

I haven't used Texnic center recently (haven't had the need to write
much math lately), but I believe you can turn on vissible line numbers
in the editor window, which makes debugging much faster and easier. I
also think you can step through the LaTeX code one line at a time with
f9 or f10, and you'd get the error message for that line as you step
through, which will help you locate the error more quickly.
The downside is, of course, that you have to write up a lot of LaTeX
commands to format the text. It's beneficial if you want to have
complete control over the look of the document, and you can do some
very neat things with LaTeX like automatic numbering, bibliography and
create a slide show with relative ease.
But if you just want to use TeX to create math, but want to use a
regular editor otheriwse, I believe Word with MathType is your best
shot.
MathType will cost you $57 (academic discount) or $97 (retail), and I
had minor issues getting the macros to work in my Word 2007 when I set
it up, though I, or someone on this list, could definitely help you
get it sorted.
There is a 30 day free trial so you can experiment with it.
You just insert a math object through the MathType menu on your word
manubar, paste in the TeX code (or write it) for the math, and you
should be good.
Cheers
-B

On 7/18/11, Alysha <anjeans at att.net> wrote:
> 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
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Blindmath:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/birkir.gunnarsson%40gmail.com
>