Help:Formulas

Formulas on a wiki like Ifigenia can be represented in three ways, depending on the formula complexity and tools used:

• Unicode characters - for simple formulas, of course :-)
• Images - for formulas of any complexity, created as an image file (preferably .png or .gif) and uploaded locally.
• TeX code - for formulas of any complexity - from very simple to extremely sophisticated

Maybe, for the users of Ifigenia TeX-coded formulas may turn out to be the most natural ones. They allow relatively good integration with other TeX documents and they can be further saved as .gif images, for the sake of integration with Word documents.

Formulas in TeX

In the wiki websites, TeX-formulas are distinguished from the rest of the text by enclosing them with the tags <math> </math>. A handy way is to click the Math button and then write between the tags.

Alternatives

Formulas in simple text

These can be produced with:

• the keyboard symbols,
• the symbols from the virtual keyboard (available by clicking on the button in edit mode)
• any other Unicode symbols
• formatting commands like <sub> </sub> (subscript), <sup> </sup> (superscript), '' '' (italic)

The major drawback is that in this way only one-line simple formulas can be produced; multiline formula, fractions, matrices, etc cannot be created using simple text. However, it can prove handy for really small formula or variables/constants/functions definitions, and for people who do not master TeX.

Examples

Source code (in edit mode)	Result (in read mode)
x<sup>2</sup> + y<sup>2</sup> = z<sup>2</sup>	x2 + y2 = z2
''π<sub>A</sub>(x) = 1 - (μ<sub>A</sub>(x) + ν<sub>A</sub>(x))''	πA(x) = 1 - (μA(x) + νA(x))
A = ∑<sub>i=1</sub><sup>n</sup> a<sub>i</sub>	A = ∑i=1n ai

Formulas in uploaded images

You may first want to read Help:Upload and Help:Images and files.

The major drawbacks of this approach are:

• Images are difficult to edit, and need external graphic editor for this sake.
• Images may scale down, but may not scale up well (unless in vector graphic format).
• Images files may be unnecessary large.
• Files can only be uploaded by registered users.