Enso TeX Anywhere
From Mathtran
Contents |
Enso TeX Anywhere
Humanized Inc, a Chicago software company, has written a client for MathTran that makes it easy to put mathematics in emails. For example ,
and
.
Here's how to do it. First, you have to download and install first their Enso launcher: http://www.humanized.com/enso/launcher/, and then their Enso TeX Anywhere software: http://www.humanized.com/enso/beta/ensotexanywhere. Even though the launcher is on a 30 day trial, TeX Anywhere will continue to work after the trial has ended.
Next, start writing an email, choosing HTML format (rather than say plain text or rich text).
Now suppose you want to write the equation of the unit sphere . Here's how to do it (it takes much long to explain how to do it than to actually do it).
1. You should type and then select (highlight) x^y + y^2 + z^2 = 1, which is the TeX notation for the equation.
2. Now you press the Caps Lock key, which summons the Enso assistant. It will appear in the top left of the screen.
3. Keep Caps Lock pressed, and press the 'r' key, which will bring up the 'render tex' command.
4. Now release the Caps Lock key. The Enso assistant will take your equation, send it to http://www.mathtran.org for rendering, and replace the selected text by the bitmap image provided by MathTran.
I've been using this for a bit, and this process takes me a bit less than 10 seconds (once I've typed the equation).
Here's another equation,, which comes from the calculus of residues. One can 'unrender' this equation by
1. Selecting the bit map image. This can be a bit tricky, so here's how I do it a) Place the cursor to the left of the image. b) Move the cursor right until it is immediately before the image. c) Press Shift-Cursor right to select the image.
2. Caps Lock to summon the Enso assistant.
3. Keep Caps Lock pressed, and type 'unr' to bring up the 'unrender' command.
Doing this will replace the bitmap image with the TeX notation used to generate the image, which in this case is \frac{1}{2i\pi}\oint \frac{1}{z} dz = 1.
(This unrendering is not magic - the MathTran generated bitmap contains in it the TeX notation as metadata, and all unrender does is replace the bitmap with this piece of the metadata. The rabbit can be pulled from the hat because it had been put there already.)
User Comments
Formula bitmaps as attachments
When an email containing TeX formula bitmaps is attached to another email, the formulas show up as individual attachments, with names like "mathtran tex x^2 + y^2 = 1". It might be that these attachments could be given more helpful names, and in particular the .png extension.
Not all applications are supported
Enso TeX Anywhere does not work with many applications, such as the First Class conferencing system.
Not comprehensible when read as plain text
If the recipient has preferences set to read email in plain text mode, they get something that's hard to read, such as
Here's how to get the equation tex:[[x%5E2%2By%5E2%3D1]]<http://www.mathtran.org/cgi-bin/mathtran?tex=x%5E2%2By%5E2%3D1> into your email.
The gobbledygook
x%5E2%2By%5E2%3D1
is "x^2 + y^2 = 1" escaped for use in a URL. Again, there's scope for improvement here, although that might require some programming or a filter somewhere.
