Re: [NTG-context] text in mathematics

In many "less-rigorous" uses of equations, there is an abundant need to include words (text) in mathematics, and using \mathtext{} or \mbox{} or whatever is unwieldy. Readable subscripts, self-explanatory variable names, etc. might be text and not symbols. These situations can be very common. This is why I asked (1) what is the right method, and (2) what do others think about the shorthand \t{}, similar to the shorthand \m{}? Alan On Sun, 8 Jul 2018 23:00:00 +0200 Otared Kavian wrote:

Hi Alan, Wolfgang and Hans Åberg,

As far as I am concerned, when I have to add a text to a math formula I use \mbox, as in the example

\startformula A := \left\{f : {\Bbb R}^2 \longrightarrow {\Bbb R} \; ; \; f \mbox{ is measurable and } \int_{{\Bbb R}^2}|f(x)|dx < \infty \right\}. \stopformula

The advantage being that if the above formula appears in an environment such as a Theorem (where the text is typeset in italic, or slanted) the text in the above \mbox will be also in italic or slanted.

I don't think it would be a good idea to add new commands to treat text in a math formula: the existing possiblities are more than satisfactory, and moreover situations where one has to add text to a formula are not that common. So using a command like \mbox, or \text, or \mathtext, or whatever, is not that time consuming.

Best regards: OK

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On 8 Jul 2018, at 21:21, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

Hi Alan,

1. The correct way to use \mathrm is {\mathrm ...} because it is a switch like \rm for text mode.

2. \mathrm is the wrong method to write text in formulas because the command changes only the math alphabet. This means no ligatures, kerning or other characters like umlauts.

3. The correct way to write text in math mode is \mathtext (which has the synonym \text) or \mathword. To change the style of the text you can use \mathtext{\it …} or \mathtextit{…}.

Wolfgang

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Alan Braslau mailto:braslau.list@comcast.net 7. Juli 2018 um 16:04 Hello ConTeXt users,

Does it drive you crazy to see TeX users write $t = time$? (I see this all of the time by LaTeX users in Beamer presentations.)

One can do better writing $t = {\rm time}$ (maybe) or in ConTeXt $t = \mathrm{time}$. Sometimes, too, I might write $t = \text{time}$.

We also have the commands \mathematics{} that can be used in place of the TeX shorthand $...$, and this also has the shortcut \m{...}.

I thought that it might be useful to have an equivalent escape, to be used as $t = \t{time}$. What do other users think?

OK, \m{t = \t{time}} might be a bit funky...

Alan

P.S. I proposed doing this via \let\t\mathrm but Hans tells me that this is not good, as \mathrm{} does not give proper font processing, so implementation of \t{} would be something different... ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

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