Design Science News

Microsoft is bringing VBA back in the next Mac Office!

As many of you know, Mac Office 2008 lacks VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) support. This means that some of MathType's functionality within Word will not be available in the forthcoming (August) release of MathType for Mac 6.0. Microsoft has announced that they are going to bring back VBA in the next major release of Mac Office. Unfortunately, it appears that it won't happen before 2010. Better late than never! We explain the situation more fully on the MathType and Microsoft Office 2008 for Macintosh page.

MathType Tip: Drawing attention to your equations with comments and annotations

Suppose you're writing a PowerPoint presentation to introduce function rules to your 6th grade math class. You'd like to be able to annotate an example equation with labels, but don't know how to do that.

There are so many reasons to annotate equations, and so many ways to do it that it's impossible to cover them all in a single page, but this new MathType Tip will show you how to add comments to your MathType equations in the most common scenarios.

MathType Tip: Saving common formulas and equations to use later

If you find you're entering the same equation or term over and over again, or if you tend to use the same handful of symbols and templates, this tip will make those tasks faster and easier. It shows you how to create equations faster by dragging frequently used items to the MathType toolbar so they can be inserted later with just a click or a keystroke.

MathType Tip: Adding memorable keyboard shortcuts for your most commonly-used symbols and actions

As a mathematician, you often use the operator symbols "much less than" and "much greater than" in MathType, and you wish there were a shortcut key for these symbols so you wouldn't have to choose them from the palette each time.

MathType has built-in keyboard shortcuts for most symbols, templates, and menu items. It also allows you to create shortcuts where none exists, and to change or delete the built-in shortcuts. This tip will show you how.

MathType Tip: Author equations using only the keyboard

Have you ever wondered if there's a way to type an entire equation in MathType using only the keyboard? Actually, MathType was created both for those who prefer to build their equations by pointing and clicking on menu commands and palette icons, as well as those who prefer to keep their fingers on the keyboard and use the mouse or touchpad as little as possible.

We have a new tip that will guide you through the simple steps involved in creating equations quickly and easily by using keyboard shortcuts and TeX. Read this new tip on our website.

MathType Tip: Copy equations from Wikipedia and other websites into MathType

You're teaching a lesson tomorrow on the chain rule, and you've found the perfect example on Wikipedia. Now what do you do with it? If you answered "re-type it in MathType so I can use it in PowerPoint", we've got a tip that'll save you loads of time.

With MathType 6, you can copy equations from Wikipedia and use them as you would any MathType equation. We've added a new tip to MathType Tips & Tricks that shows you how to do this. We'd love to know about other sites you've found that MathType works with -- other websites, blogs, wikis, etc. -- and if there are sites you'd like MathType to work with, please let us know by posting a comment here.

Using MathType with Moodle

Moodle is an open-source learning management system that you may already be using. If so, you've seen how much easier your life is with this valuable tool. What if I said you could take that quiz you wrote last year in Microsoft Word, and you can reuse the equations in Moodle without having to re-type them? Did you know you can use MathType equations in a Moodle forum or chat? What about the reverse? You can copy an equation from a colleague's Moodle course, paste it into MathType, and use it in PowerPoint.

We have a new Application Note, Using MathType With Moodle, that will show you how to do all of these things, and more. If this AppNote proves to be useful to you, you might want to check out our other AppNotes too.

MathType Tips & Tricks

We're excited to announce the launch of MathType Tips & Tricks. Tips & Tricks consists of short articles that help you fine-tune your MathType skills. There are currently five tips, including a tip showing how to change the font and size of all equations in a document with a single command, and a tip showing how to create multi-line expressions (i.e., "stacked" arithmetic). We'll be adding new tips from time to time, so we recommend bookmarking the Tips & Tricks page for future reference. We'll also mention new tips in this blog, so if you want to make sure you always have the latest MathType tips, subscribe to the blog.

ICTCM Conference in San Antonio, March 6-8

We will be exhibiting at the International Conference for Technology in Collegiate Mathematics at the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel in San Antonio TX. Exhibits are Thursday March 6 through Saturday March 8. Stop by booth 110 and see the new features of MathType 6 for Windows, including TeX input and copy/paste from Wikipedia, PlanetMath, and many blogs. For information on this and other conferences where we will be exhibiting, see our Events Schedule.

MathType for the Macintosh and Microsoft Office 2008

Microsoft has just released Office 2008 for the Macintosh. This is the first version of Office that runs natively on Intel Macs. Unfortunately, the current version of MathType isn't compatible with it. We're working on a new version to deal with this but before upgrading to Office 2008 there are some things you should know. Visit MathType and Microsoft Office 2008 for details.