[OS X TeX] Commercial equation editor

[Maarten Sneep]

On 27 Jul 2005, at 9:48, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> About equation editors: Wendy McKay from TUG noticed the existence  
> of the commercial MathMagic <http://www.mathmagic.com/product/ 
> product.html>, which exists as a personal edition and several pro  
> editions. It's fully WYSIWYG, and doesn't seem to be TeX-based.

I think if you search hard enough on this list, and go back several  
years, you'll find some messages from the developer, trying to sell  
us on their software. I delivered some comments, and apparently they  
appreciated those comments, and gave me a license. The user interface  
is very similar to the Word equation editor: IMHO it isn't really  
pleasant (naughty words removed).

At the time they just added some TeX export, but I have no clue how  
that could ever get past QA: the tex code just will never compile,  
due to issues with fonts, and plain coding errors. I haven't tried  
the MathML export followed by an XSLT translation, and frankly I have  
no use for such an editor, so I don't really feel inclined to try it  
out.

I didn't think the output is particularly spectacular, the same  
typographic glitches that are produced by MathType are present here  
as well. It feels like a MathType clone.

[snip]

> The equations can be pasted in applications like Keynote  
> apparently, and double-clicking the pasted equation brings back to  
> the editor for modification. More details in <http:// 
> www.mathmagic.com/download/Documentations/MM5.0UserGuide.pdf>.

It would be interesting to figure out how they do that. It should be  
visible in the xml document produced by Keynote.

> That said, the pricing seems prohibitive IMO for an equation editor  
> -- compared with what we get for free with TeX-based editors (for  
> example, $30 academic with 6-month subscription for the personal  
> edition, *and* $200 academic with 6-month subscription for the pro  
> InDesign edition).

The pricing is not the prohibitive part IMHO, it is the time limited  
license: you cannot open your own documents without a valid license.  
Imagine you cannot open a document from one years ago, because you  
choose not to renew the license. That is even worse than MS Word!

Maarten
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