Curriculum Areas: Language arts/math/social studies/science Grade Level: 4 and up Application: Microsoft® Word 2002 and Microsoft Excel 2002 Tip: Insert an equation into your document. Description: Equation Editor is an extremely powerful tool for teachers and students. The tool lets you build equations by picking symbols from a toolbar, as well as by typing numbers and variables. As you build an equation, Equation Editor automatically adjusts font sizes, spacing, and formatting. You can also adjust formatting as you work and redefine the automatic styles.
The Equation Editor Toolbar:
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The top row of the Equation Editor toolbar has buttons for inserting more than 150 mathematical symbols, many of which are not available in the standard Symbol font.
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The bottom row of the Equation Editor toolbar has buttons for inserting templates (also called frameworks) that contain such symbols as fractions, radicals, summations, integrals, products, matrices, and various fences, or matching pairs of symbols, such as brackets and braces.
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Many templates contain slots, which are spaces for you to type text and insert symbols. About 120 available templates are grouped on palettes. You can nest templates, which means you can insert templates in the slots of other templates, to build complex hierarchical formulas.
Some Examples:
Equation
Example
Carl Gauss (Germany, 1777-1855) discovered that the following equation can be used to calculate the sum of numbers 1 through N:(N+1) (N/2)
Calculate the sum of the numbers 1 - 100 SUM = (N+1) (N/2) = (100+1) (100/2) = (101) (50) = 5,050
The following equation is used to calculate the age of someone on another planet: A
p
= A
e
x (365/T
p
) Ap = age on other planet Ae = age on Earth Tp = time of one revolution around sun
If Sue is 12 years old on Earth, what would her age be if she lived on Mercury? (Mercury takes 88 days to revolve around the sun.) A
p
= A
e
x (365/T
p
) = 12 x (365/88) = 49.8 years old
How to:
1.
From a Microsoft Word or Excel document, position the insertion point or cell pointer where you want the equation to appear.
2.
Select Object from the Insert menu.
3.
Click the Object Type tab, and then select Microsoft Equation 3.0 from the list of choices. Click OK to continue.
NOTE: If the Equation option is not available, you may need to install Microsoft Equation Editor.
4.
Type your equation and select symbols from the top or bottom row of the toolbar as needed. Notice that pointing to a symbol shows its name at the bottom-left side of your screen.
5.
When you are done building the equation, just click somewhere on the Word or Excel document (away from the equation), and it will appear in the document.
6.
To modify or change the equation, double-click it.
7.
To delete it all together, click it once to select it, and then press DELETE.
8.
Resize it by dragging from a corner box, just as you would resize a picture.
9.
Notice that in Excel you can drag the formula because it is free-floating, sitting on top of the spreadsheet.
