[K12OSN] Mathtype (WAS:Database for desktop...)

[Tom Haynes]

Terrell Prude', Jr. wrote...

Have you ever considered using LaTeX for doing your math typesetting?  A
friend of mine at the University of Washington converted the entire Math
Dept. there over to using LaTeX--remember, these are all ego-maniac Ph.
D. professors here--and not only did they convert to using LaTeX, but
they now swear by it and won't consider anything that isn't as good.
Before that, they'd used Microsoft Office for this purpose, and their
attitude was, "I don't have time to learn any 'new technology'; I have
to do my research and teach!  I've got a *job* to do!"

Here's how my friend did it.  He, being a math instructor himself, made
up some student worksheets for the calculus classes, and he showed them
to a couple of math professors.  The profs said, "Wow, that's pretty
cool.  How long did it take you?"  My friend said, "Oh, about 5
minutes."  Then he went and showed them how he did it.  Sure enough,
five minutes later, he'd made another worksheet with some good calculus
problems (definite integrals and such).  After picking up their jaws,
the profs said, "Can you show us how?"  He again did, and the rest is
history.

--snip--

I would like to correspond with a math teacher off-list who has messed with
one of the TeX editors. I looked all over and decided to try MiKTex on my
Wintel laptop. As close as I can tell, I need to write this stuff in
html-like code and then compile it to generate a *.ps file. I may be barking
up the wrong TeX tree, but no one in my dept is going to give this a second
look. MathType works pretty well, and it is integrated with Office. I
understand the philosophical issues and all, but I am a practical guy.

Regards...  Tom