Maple User Group Answers

[Anfang] [Hauptseite] [Suchen] [LDFM]

mathematical symbols   (4.2.02)

Sharon Gray

I am sorry for having to ask such a basic question but would someone please point me in the right direction. I have Maple V Student Edition. Where do I find find the symbols for "approximately equals" or "does not equal" etc. Is there somewhere in the help menu that I can print off a list of these. I know I can do =< greater than or equals to this way, but is there an actual symbol in Maple I can use to make the documentation look more professional. Many thanks for any help with this.

Robert J. Lopez   (5.2.02)

Maple doesn't have a symbol for approximately equal. In fact, you can't even make such a symbol in text unless you import the notation from a text editor.

The notation for not equal is x<>y. In a text region, press the function key F5, type x<>y then press F5 to exit the in-line math mode, and you will have the proper symbol for "not equal."

Robert Israel   (5.2.02)

See the help page ?operators,binary for a list of the binary operators in Maple. There isn't one for "approximately equals", but there is "<>" for "does not equal". The "greater than or equals" operator is ">=", however it exists only for input, not output: Maple automatically changes a >= b to b <= a.

Dr Francis J. Wright   (6.2.02)

Any symbol that Maple can display can be produced by entering the appropriate Maple input in math mode, by which I mean click on the "Sigma" button and type the Maple input in the text box on the context bar (just below the toolbar). So, you can get "not equal" that way by entering "<>", and you can get "less than or equal" by entering "<=", but you can't get "approximately equal" or "greater than or equal" that way because Maple never displays those symbols; in the first case it just doesn't have the concept (AFAIK) and in the second it always simplifies > to < etc. and so never needs to display > or >=.

A few special symbols that are in the text font, such as a multiplication sign, can be entered most easily via the Windows Character Map accessory. (I assume there is an analogue on other platforms.) But symbols that are in the symbol font cannot be accessed directly. It would be very useful if they could!

One final option, again under Windows, is to include Microsoft Equation Editor objects. I have used this trick quite a lot and it works fairly well. The main disadvantage is that they are discarded in export to LaTeX output and they make worksheets non-portable, since this only works under Windows. Equation Editor is provided with Microsoft Word, but it may not be installed by default. Presumably the same trick works even better with MathType, if you happen to have it.

Alec Mihailovs   (13.2.02)

There is also a possibility to switch from the Times New Roman font to the Symath font. It has symbols for "approximately equals" (either y, or z) and "does not equal" (K) etc.

Dr Francis J. Wright   (20.2.02)

| Alec Mihailovs wrote: ...

That sounds interesting. Can you elaborate, please? Where would one obtain this font, is it free, and for what platforms is it available?

Robert J. Lopez   (20.2.02)

Using an alternative font does allow a Maple worksheet to display some new symbols such as the nabla and "approximately equal." However, not every computer has the appropriate font sets, and moving the worksheet to another machine may mean the symbols don't appear properly. Incidentally, shipping fonts to another user raises the copyright issue.

Perhaps Maple could be shipped with a rich enough set of fonts so that the notation problems the present GUI faces might be ameliorated.

Metha Kamminga   (28.2.02)

About the symbol "does not equal" and without loading fonts you can easily make this symbol by:

Klick on Format (in the menu bar) and choose for Character. Then choose the fontname "bsly". In this fonts are many possibilities for mathematical symbols. For the symbol "does not equal" you do the trick:

type 6 follows by shift-d. You will see there are a lot of possibilities for sybols "does not".

Alec Mihailovs   (28.2.02)

Frankly, I have no idea where I got it from. It just appeared in the list of the fonts available in the Maple text mode. I searched Google for it and found a link from where it can be downloaded (for Windows): http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfp/classes/310/notes.htm

Robert Israel   (3.3.02)

| Metha Kamminga wrote: ...

Apparently you have such a font, but I don't. I couldn't find it at fonts.com or on google either.

Dr Francis J. Wright   (4.3.02)

| Alec Mihailovs wrote: ...

Thanks. When I downloaded it using Netscape (4.78) the result was unusable; when I downloaded it using Internet Explorer (6.0) it was fine. This was using Windows NT4. I mention it in case anyone else has trouble.

[Anfang] [Hauptseite] [Suchen] [LDFM]