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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On 7/9/2018 11:39 AM, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

Hi Alan,

you should at least limit the scope of the command to math mode

\appendtoks     \let\t\mathtext     \let\w\mathword \to \everymathematics something

\ifdefined\t \else \unexpanded\def\t{\mathortext\text\mathtext} \fi \ifdefined\w \else \unexpanded\def\w{\mathortext\word\mathword} \fi \appendtoks \let\t\mathtext \let\w\mathword \to \everymathematics because sometimes a \t or \w is part of an expansion so we need it to be defined then (for instance, Alan loves to put lots of complex math in textext) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 9 Jul 2018, Hans Åberg wrote:

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On 8 Jul 2018, at 23:00, Otared Kavian wrote:

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.

Math displayed formula text inheriting the style of the text appears in two books from first published in 1966 and 1980 that I checked.

So a math text command should probably support that style.

IIRC, that is also the case for the \text command in amsmath. Aditya

On 9 Jul 2018, at 21:27, Hans Åberg wrote:

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On 9 Jul 2018, at 17:48, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

On Mon, 9 Jul 2018, Hans Åberg wrote:

...

On 8 Jul 2018, at 23:00, Otared Kavian wrote:

...

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.

Math displayed formula text inheriting the style of the text appears in two books from first published in 1966 and 1980 that I checked.

So a math text command should probably support that style.

IIRC, that is also the case for the \text command in amsmath.

There might be two commands, one that inherits the text environment style, and one that keeps it in normal.

Also math and code (verbatim) might appear nested in Hoare logic and such.