Chemical Forums
General Forums => Comments for Staff and Comments from Staff => Topic started by: billnotgatez on April 08, 2007, 08:23:53 PM
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How do you insert special symbols when posting?
I am thinking of
Delta
Integration
Long arrow possibly with something above and below the arrow line
And various mathematical symbols
I bet there are more that chemist use
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How about the letter ?? Handy for quantum fiends. Actually, pretty much the entire Greek alphabet would be useful.
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Wait a minute!
How did you get that symbol?
I think I am being hoodwinked.
;)
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The only way I know how to do this is by copying and pasting from the character map (on windows XP under Start Menu-->Accessories-->System Tools-->Character Map).
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Ñ
This is what I get for Delta
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?
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Are you sure that your character map is set to the correct font?
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Which font did Mitch use and what octal or hex character
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If you use Unicode font shouldn't matter.
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That's just a copy paste from the character map as per Yggdrasil instructions earlier.
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D
i went to my character map
selected the symbol character set
selected the delta
copy
pasted
i think i need to make the unicode work somehow
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No idea what is going on. Which OS, which browser?
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I think I have to fiddle with the unicode set
in one location i am using xp and ie6
in the other i am using 98 and ie6
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?
Copy paste works for me.
I know with sum characters there are alt codes.
Example alt 0181 yields µ. You hold the alt button and use the number pad.
Some useful ones may be.
° = Alt 0176
µ = Alt 0181
¼ = Alt 0188
½ = Alt 0189
¾ = Alt 0190
² = Alt 0178
³ = Alt 0179
± = Alt 0177
® = Alt 0174
© = Alt 0169
™ = 0409
I'm pretty sure psi and delta don't have one.
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For more on alt codes:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codealt.html
The µ and ± symbols are very useful to know when writing scientific reports since they work in word processors.
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An article in the least presitigious journal I've ever found...the webpage of the journal site couldn't handle special characters. So the GC×GC article ended up being about GC?GC. Way to go.
The only problem with Unicode is they don't have our precious equilibrium arrow! The best we can do is ?
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I've often seen GC-GC hyphenated, as with MS-MS...etc.
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nice site Yggdrassil, i'll like to add another of my favourites with all the symbols listed in one page:
http://www.ss64.com/ascii.html
also, i prefer to use MS word to input my symbols (character map is abit tacky!) plus the microsoft equation editor is quite useful, its very user-friendly though its not direct copy-pastable, so i save my work as a pic then upload it.
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The equation editor...that's only in the newer versions isn't it?
The new MS Word (2007, for Vista?) ... will make a table of contents and bibliography for you. That is SUCH a nice feature, so if you add a reference halfway through your text, you don't have to manually change each number to be one higher (i.e. from [3], [4], [5] to [4], [5], [6])
And this may be getting more off-topic but if I have to put equations into my documents, I really prefer to use http://rogercortesi.com/eqn/index.php - you type the equation in LaTeX and it will make a graphic out of the equation, which you can just copy-and-paste into your Word document
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Same LaTeX equations are present in the OpenOffice.
No idea about TOC and blibliography details, but these things have been present in MSWord 5.0 back in eighties. Perhaps they have been present even in MSWord 3.0, but my memory is wobbly here. If the technology is 20 years old it must have made its way into all possible text editors.
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i tried learning LaTeX but it was too much of a hassle for me, i had to deal with different formats in addition to trying to figure out the numerous representations for the symbols (HTML is okay, but this takes the cake!) thus, i prefer the WYSIWYG editors.
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That's the learning curve. Once you get past the initial cliff it is not that hard :)
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would you recommend a guide then? preferably for chemists who just want to write equations :P
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Learn general ideas at http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=9021
Shame that we have to link to our competitors ;)
Very basic:
MnO_4^- - should render as MnO4-
MnO_{4}^{2-} - should render as MnO42-
Dissociation constant:
K_a=\frac{[H^+][A^-]}{[HA]}
Note how curly brackets group expressions. Formatting is done completely automatically, in LaTeX you only describe formula. That's how TeX/LaTeX works when used for DTP.
OpenOffice uses its own engine, in some respects compeletely different. For example use of {} for charges is a little bit tricky and fractions are defined in a different way:
K_a = {[H^{{}+{}}][A^{{}-{}}]} over {[HA]}
Still, once you get used to that - it works perfectly. See my pH lectures.
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-calculation&right=pH-salt-solution
Scroll down to the last equation on the page :)
{C_a sum from{i = 1} to{n} iK_{ai} left[ H right] ^{n-i}} over {left[ H right]^n+sum from {i =1} to {n} K_{ai}left[ H right]^{n-i}} + K_w over left[ H right] = { C_b sum from{i = 1} to{m} iK_{bi}left[ H right]^i K_w^{m-i}} over { K_w^m + sum from {i=1} to {m} left[ H right]^i K_{bi}K_w^{m-i}}+ left[ H right]
For me main reason for using OpenOffice is that it is free, as opposed to rather costly MSOffice. Functionality is similar, although OO is sluggish at times.
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Step 1, get FireFox:
http://www.getfirefox.com
Step 2, install this Extension (It also works for Thunderbird, the email client):
http://abctajpu.mozdev.org/
Then, all you have to do is a right click on the text entry field and select the symbol you want, it has all Greek, plus so much more.
Really, it makes life much simpler.
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i dont know which version of firefox you use, but i use the latest one which is 2.x, and it is incompatible :O with that extension u recommended. still, the screenshots look enticing, i hope they'll update it soon!
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I use the latest version of Firefox (2.0.0.3) and abcTajpu (1.3.5) and it works perfectly fine for me.
Why do you say it is incompatible? Did you try and install it and get an error?
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I have firefox 2.0.0.3 and I'm trying to install abcTajpu 1.3.5, but I also get an error which says that there's an error because of an "invalid file hash (possible download corruption)."
[edit: But installing 1.3.4 worked]
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Are the symbols coming back?
Psi-Psi in plain alphabets just looks wierd. Haha..
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I miss the psi. Mitch is evil. :(