Advanced Editing
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Chapter 5. Advanced Editing

Name insertion

A special feature is the name insertion. The blue square you type into is actual a list. Furthermore, that list can contain other lists. When you type a backslash (\) you get a new empty list right away. But this one is special. It uses a different font and is meant to insert things like function names. There is, however, a second idea here. Your keyboard only has a limited number of keys. The wealth of mathematical symbols on the other side is overwhelming. To get one of those you can type its name and press the space bar afterwards. The name you typed will be replaced by the symbol then. In this context, the Space bar means “get out of here”, that is move the cursor to the containing list. The cursor will be positioned at the end of what you just entered but will also enclose part of the original formula, after pressing the space bar.

Another thing you might want to insert are spaces. We all know, printing formulae is all about the right spacing. And you can do just that using a “name list”.

Inside the blue square do: \ , SPACE to get a small space.

Do: \ < Space to get a medium space.

Do: \ ; Space to get a thick space.

Do: \ quad Space to get a quadruple wide space.

In the same way, specific mathematical symbols can be inserted. \ oint Space inserts the path integral about a closed contour. Below is the result of \ oint Space:



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