Entering math notation in Piazza

Posted on May 21, 2017 by Sybil Shaver

(Copied from a post on the Piazza discussion board)

 

How to type in math formatting in Piazza:

This is the easiest way to do it: do this if at all possible! Using a phone should be a last resort.

If you are on a computer or logged into Piazza in a browser window, you should see a button in the toolbar of the editing window that says fx

If you hover your cursor over that button, it says “LaTeX Equation Editor”. Click on that button to get a collection of drop-down visual menus that show you various choices of formatting, Greek letters, symbols, and so on. When using this editor, it is best to enter your entire mathematical expression or equation in the editor all at once, rather than going back and forth. So as soon as you want to start typing in a mathematical expression, click on that button and work in the editor window until the expression is complete.

If you are working in the handheld app, you will not be able to use this visual editor. You can still use math formatting as follows:

Your math expression should be enclosed in double dollar signs: put $ $ at the beginning and end of the expression or equation. (But no space in between the dollar signs.)

To enter a square root (radical) sign, type \sqrt{} with the radicand inside the braces.

For example, \sqrt{3} will give you \sqrt{3} nicely formatted.

To enter a fraction (rational expression), type \frac{}{} with the numerator in the first set of braces and the denominator in the second set of braces.

For example, \frac{2}{3} will give you \frac{2}{3}.

To enter “plus or minus”, type \pm

Example: The quadratic formula would be typed in as

x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^{2} – 4ac}}{2a} enclosed in double dollar signs to give you

x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^{2} - 4ac}}{2a}

To enter \pi, type \pi

To enter the degree mark, type ^{\circ}

So 47^{\circ} gives 47^{\circ}

To enter a trig function (and make it look nice), you can enter \sin{}, \cos{}, \tan{}, etc.

So \sin{x} gives you a nicely formatted \sin{x}

To make parentheses that are the right size, you can enter them as \left( and \right) – you don’t need to do this, but it makes the expression look nicer.

Here is an example:

with regular parentheses: \sin(x – \frac{\pi}{2}) gives

\sin(x - \frac{\pi}{2})

using \left( and \right): \sin\left(x – \frac{\pi}{2}\right) gives

\sin\left(x - \frac{\pi}{2}\right)

Don’t forget to enclose the entire expression or equation in double dollar signs!

#pin

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