There are three ways that I've used myself:
1.
-- this is the typesetting language designed by Donald Knuth in the 1980s that is the basis of most professional mathematical typesetting today. The majority of academic papers submitted to journals are done in this format. The default font is an elegant Computer Modern and the language -- augmented by various symbol libraries -- offers practically unlimited control over mathematical typesetting. The way it works is that you write your document in the typesetting language, which consists of plain text for your normal text, and escape sequences starting with backslashes for the mathematics. You then run it through a processor which outputs the finished document, usually in PDF format. You generally need a reasonable degree of computer literacy to get it working. There are various programs which try to make the process more "WYSIWYG" with graphical front ends, but I haven't come across one that I'd consider excellent. Here are some links to get you started:
- https://www.latex-project.org/ -- home of the LaTeX project.
- https://www.lyx.org/ -- Lyx is one of those attempts to bolt on a graphical front end.
- https://www.sharelatex.com/ -- a fully online editor that I've used successfully for simple projects.
- http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php -- a very handy online sandbox for trying out LaTeX escape sequences. I use its link facility to embed maths in forums such as AskAboutMoney -- the following might give you a flavour of the typesetting format:
- (V_{sphere}=\tfrac{4}{3}\pi r^3)
- (M_\odot=2\times10^{30}\text{ kg})
- Note that the codecogs output above is a bitmapped graphic -- for serious typesetting you want a vector or TrueType output format which resizes gracefully instead of going all pixellated, such as LaTeX to PDF processors give.
- Here's a link to another sample AAM post using codecogs output.
2. Microsoft Word -- this has a built in equation editor which is quite serviceable for basic projects. It has the advantage of being "WYSIWYG" -- you see what you're getting as you type, instead of having to wait for some processor to run. Personally I didn't particularly like the output in terms of fonts and glyphs, and it was difficult or impossible to typeset more advanced content for maths and physics. However, if you have MS Word you have everything you need to get started. This is an example of MS Word output:
3. MathType -- this is an alternative equation editor plugin for MS Word and other programs. I think I paid $50 or so for a student version. However, the free trial version is almost fully functional except for a few features. Being used to LaTeX style sequences, I preferred to input things that way, which I think needs the full version. But if you are a newbie you probably want the graphical entry approach anyway. MathType is very flexible and has lots of advanced constructs. The output is much nicer than the built-in MS Word editor, but not nearly as nice as LaTeX. The user interface is tolerable but not exactly pretty.
Let me know if you'd like to see more examples.
