User talk:Jakob.scholbach/Archives/2007/May

Mathematics markup
Greetings, and welcome to Wikipedia.

You asked a question about a subtle point of wiki markup. Looking over projective space, I thought I should explain a less subtle point. In wiki syntax, bracketing something with two single-quotation marks on either side, as in
 *  text 
 * text
 * text

means to italicize the material inside, nothing more. In particular, it has nothing to do with indicating mathematics. The &lt;math&gt; tags do indicate a pseudo-TeX format, but we discourage their use in-line at the moment. (In future, the clash of formats may subside.) Another in-line convention is to use simple bold for "blackboard bold"; thus in-line:
 *  A sentence in running text says R is the reals. 
 * A sentence in running text says Q denotes the rationals.
 * A sentence in running text says Q denotes the rationals.

versus displayed formula.
 *  $$\forall q \in \mathbb{Q}, q^2 \ge 0 . \,\!$$ 
 * $$\forall q \in \mathbb{Q}, q^2 \ge 0 . \,\!$$
 * $$\forall q \in \mathbb{Q}, q^2 \ge 0 . \,\!$$

An explanation of that mysterious "\,\!" at the end, and much other guidance, can be found at Help:Formula. Ask Fropuff if you need help with commutative diagrams, and see How to create graphs for Wikipedia articles if you want to make your own graphs (otherwise, visit Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Graphics). More generally, see WikiProject Mathematics/Editor resources. Not all of the guidance is current and correct, but you'll find a great deal of helpful information there.

I keep a personal page of mathematics characters which you may wish to use for two purposes: to check your browser and font settings to be sure you can see most of them, and to copy ones you want to use in an article. --KSmrqT 19:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your advice. Thanks also for this symbol page, which is probably my mostly frequented Wikipedia page. I think I know mostly how to get a reasonably looking formatting. I agree that (for example) parentheses should not be italicized, but sometimes I may not pay enough attention to these minute details. In real LateX-typed papers, I also tend to use non-italic style for mathematical entities which are not considered to be a variable, such as the "H" for a cohomology group. But as far as I see, there are much more obvious and sometimes annoying differences in editors formatting ideas than these ones.
 * Another point is that the typing experience, at least for me personally, is really odd. I wish there would be a real WYSIWYG-type editor, with spell-checker, easy formatting, easy pasting of symbols etc. etc. (Currently I use WikEd, but it is only half of a solution).Jakob.scholbach 19:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A common misuse of TeX is when we see
 * $$ sin(x) \,\!$$
 * instead of
 * $$ \sin(x), \,\!$$
 * and similarly for multiletter names which are not predefined. Depending on exactly what's needed, solutions include \text{foo}, \mathrm{foo}, and \operatorname{foo}.
 * $$ \operatorname{H}_{\mathrm{dR}}^k(M) \cong \operatorname{H}^k(M;\R) \qquad \text{de Rham and singular cohomology} $$
 * Mathematics has long been considered "penalty copy" among typesetters. I doubt non-mathematics editors realize just how much of a pain it is with the jumble of styles and lack of tools we must confront. Which means it will be slow to change. Ironically, we have a solution to the jumble already programmed, if only it would be adopted: blahtex. Ah well, Wikipedia is still young, as is the Web. --KSmrqT 21:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)