Fastest way to type in math formulas out of the box

latexmicrosoft-office

There is no restriction on platform in the answers, but a few things to keep in mind:

  • Dragging a mouse and clicking on any button is far too slow and should be excluded from any answer.
    • Latex is of course a standard, are there shortcuts designed to speed it up rather than just typing it raw?
    • You can design your own shortcuts on the fly in several programs, but I'm curious, what are the fastest math shortcuts already designed and ready to use?

Best Answer

I love using the built-in Equation Editor in Word 2007. Alt + = brings up the editor, then you type this:

(a+b)^n=\sum_(k=0)^n (n\atop k)a^k b^(n-k)

This will produce the following:

alt text

It doesn't get much easier than that.

There is also an entire paper (PDF) about using plaintext to type up formulas.

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