MathTran - TeX tips - Introduction

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The basics of math in TeX

Fonts TeX knows the right font to use. Roman for numbers, tex:1 tex:2 tex:3 and math italic for variables. tex:a tex:b tex:c and so on until tex:x tex:y tex:z . You don't have to tell TeX to use italic for variables.

Lowercase greek letters To create $tex:\alpha$ you type '\alpha'. Here are some the rest: $tex:\beta$ $tex:\gamma$ $tex:\delta$ $tex:\epsilon$ $tex:\zeta$ $tex:\eta$ $tex:\theta$ $tex:\iota$ $tex:\kappa$ $tex:\lambda$ $tex:\mu$ $tex:\nu$ $tex:\xi$ $tex:\pi$ $tex:\rho$ $tex:\sigma$ $tex:\tau$ $tex:\upsilon$ $tex:\phi$ $tex:\chi$ $tex:\psi$ $tex:\omega$

Arithmetic tex:+ tex:- $tex:\times$ $tex:\div$ (There's also tex:a/b and $tex:\frac{a}{b}$ ) and finally tex:=

Subscripts and superscripts To do these, we use '_' and '^' tex:2^3=8 tex:3^2=9 tex:x^2 tex:f_1

Putting it together tex:3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2 tex:a^2 + b^2 = c^2