MathType for Macintosh is a powerful interactive equation editor that lets you create mathematical notation for word processing, web pages, desktop publishing, presentations, and for TeX, LaTeX. MathType is a powerful interactive equation editor for Windows and Macintosh that lets you create mathematical notation for word processing, web pages, desktop publishing, presentations, elearning, and for TeX, LaTeX, and MathML documents.

• Mathtype For Word
• Using Mathtype In Word

Introduction
About MathType 6
Download and Installation
Using MathType 6
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

Introduction

There are many Mac users who need to add equations within their MicrosoftOffice programs -- most of these users work with the free Equation Editorthat is bundled as part of Microsoft Office. Others upgrade from EquationEditor to MathType to get even more options to use in their equations. Sowhen Microsoft released Office 2008 for the Mac, it was a matter of timeuntil a new version of MathType was released.

In this review, we explore MathType 6 for the Mac. Beyond compatibilitywith Office 2008, MathType 6 is a major upgrade that adds support for MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard) and Intel Macs. Other new features include TeX/LaTeXinput, and the ability to copy equations to and from Wikipedia.

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About MathType 6

MathType is from DesignScience, a company based in LongBeach, CA, United States. You can learn more about their productsfrom their site.

You might also want to see our review on MathType 6 for Windows.

My contact at DesignScience for this review was Bruce Virga,thank you Bruce.

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Download and Installation

You can download a trial version of MathType 6 for Macfrom their site. This trial works just like thefull version of the program for 30 days -- thereafter it functions as MathType Lite, a less featuredversion of the program.

Mathtype For Word

Once you install the program, the setup routine will launch and close your2008 versions of Word and PowerPoint to add direct MathType commands withinthe Word and PowerPoint interfaces. Figure 1 shows you theInsert Equation command within PowerPoint 2008.

Figure 1: Insert equations in PowerPoint Back

Using MathType 6

There are two ways you can use MathType:

1. You can call MathType from within Microsoft Office applicationssuch as Word and PowerPoint by clicking the Insert Equation iconin the toolbar (refer to Figure 1).
   
2. Or you can run MathType like a conventional program from within the Applicationsfolder on your Mac (see Figure 2).
   

Figure 2: MathType in the Applications folder

Once MathType is loaded, you can create your equations. The interface issplit into two areas - the palettes and the work area. The palettes are acollection of symbols and templates - click any of them and the charactersthemselves are immediately copied to the insertion point within the workspace.Think of the workspace as a piece of paper - and the palettes as a virtualtypewriter (or rather a keyboard). Figure 3 shows you theactual interface.

Figure 3: MathType Interface

When you are done with your equation, what you do depends on whether youare running MathType from within Word/PowerPoint or as a standalone application:

If you called MathType from within Word or PowerPoint, clickingthe close button will result in MathType asking you if you want tosave the active Word document or PowerPoint presentation.

If you created a new equation within MathType in standalone mode, youcan save it to an EPS file. In addition, you can also save as PICT andGIF files.

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Using Mathtype In Word

Pricing and Support

MathType 6 costs $97.00. Upgrade pricing is $49. There's also a more cost-effectiveacademic version available.

Support options include e-mail assistance, on-phone support, online tutorials,and FAQs.

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Conclusion

MathType 6 is a very capable product -- and the availability of this newversion on the Mac brings all the new features to this platform and makesit on par with what is available for Windows users.

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