After a rather lengthy absence from my blog that’s been caused by a nasty virus of a human variety, I’m writing today about a resource that, strictly speaking, isn’t really free.  If you already have Microsoft Word, however, it’s completely free.  That’s because you already have it, even if you don’t know you’ve got it.  This one is for anyone who needs an alternative to doing math with pencil and paper.

 

Equation Editor is a feature of Microsoft Word that enables the user to insert mathematical notation into MS Word documents in a reasonably convenient fashion.  This means that someone like me who finds it difficult, and extremely frustrating, to try and do math with a pencil and paper has the option of doing math with a keyboard and a word processor.  Equation Editor makes math symbols available via a set of toolbars.  Unfortuately, there are no keyboard shortcuts for the symbols, so they must be accessed with a mouse.

Equation Editor is one of many features of Microsoft Office that is anything but obvious.  In order to use it, you have to know about it, and you need to know how to access it.  There is an obscure process by which an icon for Equation Editor can be added to any MS Word toolbar in versions of the program prior to Word 2007.  In Word 2007, the icon must be added to the “Quick Access” toolbar.  I believe that the icon for Equation Editor should be inserted as a matter of course on all computers in every school where learners have acces to MS Word.

Here’s what the Equation Editor icon looks like on the “Quick Access” toolbar in Word 2007

To place the icon on the toolbar, you must follow the steps shown below. (Instructions for MS Word 2003 can be found HERE.)

1.  Open the drop-down ‘Customize Quick Access Toolbar’ menu which is found to the right of the toolbar, and select ‘More Commands’

2. In the dialog box that opens, click open the drop-down menu under ‘Popular Commands’ and select ‘All Commands’, as shown below.

3. Scroll down to ‘Equation’, select it, and click on the ‘Add’ button to add the icon to the Quick Access toolbar.

You will notice that some other math tools are available in Word 2007, so you may wish to experiment with some of these as well.  I should add that Equation Editor is really a simplified version of MathType from Design Science.  It is also available for use in some of the other programs in MS Office.