OLE Object (e.g. formula)

[maxmax]

Hello!

Can I insert an OLE object in the Publisher? For example, I would like to use the formula editor (Writer or Word) to write formulas.

Which is the easiest way to insert and edit formulas?

 

Regards

[Dan C]

Hi maxmax

On 6/22/2019 at 2:18 PM, maxmax said:

Can I insert an OLE object in the Publisher?

OLE is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft, so unfortunately not.

However Affinity Publisher does have a Resource Manager, meaning you can place or embed multiple files into your document, such as RTF, Docx, Image files etc.

On 6/22/2019 at 2:18 PM, maxmax said:

I would like to use the formula editor (Writer or Word) to write formulas.

Which is the easiest way to insert and edit formulas?

Publisher doesn't current support formulas, or embedding spreadsheet data. We can currently copy and paste from spreadsheets to tables in Affinity, but we're working on improving this for future builds.

I hope this helps.

[maxmax]

Ok.

Thank you

[GarryP]

This post might be a bit late to the race – I only found this thread by accident – but you can create equations using Publisher. However, you do need to be careful and patient.
I’ve attached an example where I’ve used a table and the Cambria Math font to create something reasonably complex.
Some planning and tweaking is necessary but it’s possible; I just wouldn’t want to do it for lots of equations.
My recommendation would be to create the equation in something else – e.g. LaTeX, or whatever – and export as SVG to import (linked may be preferable) into Publisher.

complex-equation.afpub

[Hilltop]

That must have taken you some creative planning and execution! Kudos!

[GarryP]

Thanks. I just wanted to see if it was possible. It is, but it's just not very easy.

[GarryP]

I’ve just done a quick test with MiKTeX (TexWorks) on Windows and I can create the equations, export them as PDFs, import the PDFs into Publisher – as Linked files – clip the PDF down to size (if necessary) and update them quite easily using the Resource Manager.
It’s not an ideal solution but it works.
Try this LaTeX:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{
papersize={210mm,60mm},
}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
f(x) &= x^2\\
g(x) &= \frac{1}{x}\\
F(x) &= \int^a_b \frac{1}{6}x^4
\end{align*}
\end{document} 

To get the attached example.

[walt.farrell]

Thanks, @GarryP. That looks like an interesting approach. Of course, with importing PDF files we'll have the known issues with needing to have the fonts installed, and with other changes being made by Publisher, given that the PDFs are not "pass-through" but editable. SVG might be preferrable, if MiKTeX can handle that.

I'm not sure what happened there, but the integral operation on the last line doesn't seem to have worked properly.

[GarryP]

Oops. Thanks for pointing that out Walt. I wasn’t concentrating.
Looking at the fonts in the PDF they seem to be all embedded subsets of the CM* fonts.
I installed the "cm-super" package into MiKTeX (via the Package manager) and added this line to my LaTeX code:

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} 

...but it’s still not coming though into Publisher correctly (all of the text is being converted to Consolas, for some reason).
Aside: If I try and open the PDF in Designer it asks to convert all of the fonts to Arial.
Opening the PDF in Inkscape – via the Poppler/Cairo importer – lets me save as SVG and then import that nicely into Publisher (see attached) but it makes the process more long-winded and, therefore, less useful.
As far as I know, TexWorks doesn’t have an “Export to SVG” function.
I’m not a LaTeX expert but maybe there’s one out there who can give more/better information.

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, GarryP said:

...but it’s still not coming though into Publisher correctly (all of the text is being converted to Consolas, for some reason).
Aside: If I try and open the PDF in Designer it asks to convert all of the fonts to Arial.

Do you also have the relevant CM* fonts installed in Windows?

[Alfred]

19 minutes ago, GarryP said:

the "cm-super" package

https://www.ctan.org/pkg/cm-super