Insert math formulas in Designer

[olgierd]

Is it possible to insert mathematical formulas into Affinity Designer? For example, I want to add fractions.

[Old Bruce]

43 minutes ago, olgierd said:

I want to add fractions.

1/2 + 6/41 = x.

You can do that but a lot depends on the font. Some have actual divisors instead of / a forward slash and they will also have numeral glyphs for Numerator and Denominator.  Anything more like an actual One Over Two is doable but would require using Art Text and a lot of manual arranging.

In fact you are going to be better off using an application to set the more complex equations because apparently this whole Maths thing is a weak spot for Designer, Photo and Publisher. I am in no way competent to judge.

[olgierd]

Thanks very much! I know you have to use either MathML or Latex to include formulas. I suppose that Affinity Publisher can't do that.

[Old Bruce]

I forgot to mention that you should export the formulae (formulas? I can never remember) as PDFs.

[v_kyr]

27 minutes ago, olgierd said:

I suppose that Affinity Publisher can't do that.

Your assumption is right, actually it can't do that yet and has no idea about typesetting mathematical formulas. - Thus you have to look for possible workarounds and third party tools. Most of the tools specialized for such purposes do all support MathML/TeX & Latex syntax as input.

[olgierd]

I know how to set the code for MathLM. Then when I import the code into Publisher, it doesn't show up. It does not work correctly with the pdf import either. Actually, I can only import the formulas as png.

[v_kyr]

51 minutes ago, olgierd said:

I know how to set the code for MathLM. Then when I import the code into Publisher, it doesn't show up. It does not work correctly with the pdf import either. Actually, I can only import the formulas as png.

AFAIK Publisher doesn't know how to interpret MathML code or LaTeX syntax/code, you always have to use some third party app to interpret and render the results, then to copy over the math typeset result as an bitmap image. - Or try out if it deals with SVG code then correctly instead of PDF, for this (equations in SVG) take a look here ...

• LaTeX to SVG
• LaTeX Equation Editor for Writing Maths ...
• ... etc. ...

[lacerto]

On 12/11/2021 at 5:58 PM, olgierd said:

Is it possible to insert mathematical formulas into Affinity Designer? For example, I want to add fractions.

Just for fractions in slash notation, selecting a font like Helvetica Now that directly supports contextual fractions (an OpenType feature, support of which is a font property, but which Affinity apps have support for) might be sufficient to do the job:

 

As for proper equations, if you are on Windows, you can copy paste Word and LibreOffice equations (which at least to some extent understand LaTeX and even MathML) as editable WMF (EMF) format (on macOS everything will be rasterized). Using a third-party tool like MathType would allow you to batch export equations to WMF/EMF or PDF format (macOS), and also convert from MathML, and accordingly at least to some extent allow automating professional publishing of equation-heavy documents, but you'd probably do better to choose another publishing app / method in the first place.

[olgierd]

21 hours ago, Lagarto said:

Just for fractions in slash notation, selecting a font like Helvetica Now that directly supports contextual fractions (an OpenType feature, support of which is a font property, but which Affinity apps have support for) might be sufficient to do the job:

As for proper equations, if you are on Windows, you can copy paste Word and LibreOffice equations (which at least to some extent understand LaTeX and even MathML) as editable WMF (EMF) format (on macOS everything will be rasterized). Using a third-party tool like MathType would allow you to batch export equations to WMF/EMF or PDF format (macOS), and also convert from MathML, and accordingly at least to some extent allow automating professional publishing of equation-heavy documents, but you'd probably do better to choose another publishing app / method in the first place.

Many thanks for your help.

[v_kyr]

On 12/11/2021 at 7:14 PM, olgierd said:

I can only import the formulas as png.

I can pretty well in Designer with SVG. Here's a simple example SVG for you try out ...

• CodeCogsEqn.svg

[Dybkjær]

I also have the need to make math diagrams, and so want to insert math formulas. Right now that is cumbersome in Affinity Designer. Fair enough, it was designed for illustrations and not diagrams. It would be really useful, though, for my needs, as I often do math diagrams in my illustrations.

Pages on the iPad provides a really neat solution that Serif might want to look into: When Inserting an equation, the input switches to LaTeX, alternatively MathML and provides gorgeous results from a format designed to write math. The formulas are subject to e.g. font color and size, but not to style.

Attached an image of how it looks like in Pages on iPad (I only ever use Affinity tools on the iPad, of course looking forward to Publisher coming here as well).

[thistle]

+1 here. 

I would buy a license in 1 minute if any kind of math typesetting were supported.