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55 Posts
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20325
July 9th, 2008 15:00
Math Software for Ubuntu
I recently switched my Dell desktop to Ubuntu 8.04 from Vista. Great move. It would be perfect if...
I use equations heavily in PowerPoints for the physics classes I teach. The math editor in Open Office is really bad and does a lousy job. On Windows (laptop will be switched to Ubuntu or XP), I regularly use MathType 6.
So... I installed MathType under Wine. Lousy results, I don't know why. I then got the demo of CrossOver Linux, still Wine based, but the results are what I expect, sort of. I save the equation in "eps/WMF" format and then import the image into OpenOffice Presentation. Most everything works cleanly but some symbols, important ones such as limits on integrals, circular integrals, some (but not all) special symbols come out garbled.
On Windows, the problem is almost always missing fonts. I moved every TTF font file over to Ubuntu, placing them in every font folder I could find. No luck.
The OLE link to MathType never appears in OO, that would be the best solution (I am running Beta 3). Some people suggest LaTex but I don't see the point of learning that massive system for slides. I've played with LyX, but that is not really designed for creating equations for other apps. The general attitude I've gotten from many on Linux sites is a variation of the old joke: The sign in the general store says "If we don't carry it, you don't need it." They say use Latex and forget silly GUI stuff. I like silly GUI stuff!
I am not sure I know what is really wrong. Fonts? Something else? I know that CrossOver doesn't explicitly support MathType but it installed and runs fine.
Any ideas? I want the perfect Linux machine! Thanks.
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jdeslip
18 Posts
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July 9th, 2008 18:00
I feel your pain. I am a fulltime linux user who is also a Physics graduate student. I need to create presentations with equations in them all the time.
The equation editor in OpenOffice is a really its worst feature if you ask me. It generally does work, but involves more effort to type in equations and resize them than MS Office. And, the compatibility with Powerpoint is not always very good. So, either do everything in OpenOffice or everything in Powerpoint.
I also have CrossoverOffice license. I find that the integrated equation editor in Office/Powerpoint XP works pretty much flawlessly, including Integrals, greek letters etc... (although it may be just a bit slower than running it in Windows). I could never get equations to work right in Office 2003 under Crossover, however. So, you might try installing Office XP (if you have it) - and, when you install it, make sure to do a complete install (which installs the equation editor).
Can you get MathType to output to a different format than wmf? Like .gif or .png perhaps? That would work better for OpenOffice. Although, it doesn't lend to resizing very well. Also, can you verify that all the fonts are installed? I.e. that the fonts from ~/.cxoffice/win98/drive_c/windows/fonts/ are showing up as options in openoffice? If not, you might not have installed them correctly on Ubuntu.
I also use Mathematica (which has a native linux version) to give some presentations. With a little formatting it can look quite nice and produces good quality PDF files.
Finally, as a last resort, you might consider installing VirtualBox (which is free) and running windows in a virtual machine that can be accessed extremely quickly under Linux to run Office for the purposes of running Office.
jgitz
55 Posts
0
July 10th, 2008 14:00
I would use PowerPoint on Linux and skip OO Presentation but I only have Office 2003 and 2007 available. I can get neither to install under CrossOver.
The other formats offered by MathType don't work well. The GIF output has all the symbols but it is very blocky and looks awful. MathType even creates Latex output but, for some reason, the OO Latex addon doesn't understand it. Yikes!
So, physics... It has been a long time since I was a young and lowly physics TA! But I had lots of fun as you should be having now. I looked at LyX and it appears to be excellent for scientific papers and comes with templates for some journals (the maintainer is an astronomer). Much different than something such as Word but, after the somewhat steep learning curve, looks great for scientific publishing. Linux, Windows, and Mac versions available, take a look if you haven't seen it yet. Best of all, it is free!
Oh yeah, I'll look at VirtualBox. I never heard of that so maybe it will run with versions of Office I have available.
mwette
38 Posts
0
August 21st, 2008 12:00
There is a LaTeX package/utility that generates bitmap files (gif?) from equations.
People at work use this and import the bitmap files to display equations. It's not
perfect but then you get the beautiful TeX equations.