[lemonoman]

An article in the least presitigious journal I've ever found...the webpage of the journal site couldn't handle special characters.  So the GC×GC article ended up being about GC?GC.  Way to go.

The only problem with Unicode is they don't have our precious equilibrium arrow!  The best we can do is ?

[Ψ×Ψ]

I've often seen GC-GC hyphenated, as with MS-MS...etc.

[xiankai]

nice site Yggdrassil, i'll like to add another of my favourites with all the symbols listed in one page:

http://www.ss64.com/ascii.html

also, i prefer to use MS word to input my symbols (character map is abit tacky!) plus the microsoft equation editor is quite useful, its very user-friendly though its not direct copy-pastable, so i save my work as a pic then upload it.

[lemonoman]

The equation editor...that's only in the newer versions isn't it?

The new MS Word (2007, for Vista?) ... will make a table of contents and bibliography for you.  That is SUCH a nice feature, so if you add a reference halfway through your text, you don't have to manually change each number to be one higher (i.e. from [3], [4], [5] to [4], [5], [6])

And this may be getting more off-topic but if I have to put equations into my documents, I really prefer to use http://rogercortesi.com/eqn/index.php - you type the equation in LaTeX and it will make a graphic out of the equation, which you can just copy-and-paste into your Word document

[Borek]

Same LaTeX equations are present in the OpenOffice.

No idea about TOC and blibliography details, but these things have been present in MSWord 5.0 back in eighties. Perhaps they have been present even in MSWord 3.0, but my memory is wobbly here. If the technology is 20 years old it must have made its way into all possible text editors.

[xiankai]

i tried learning LaTeX but it was too much of a hassle for me, i had to deal with different formats in addition to trying to figure out the numerous representations for the symbols (HTML is okay, but this takes the cake!) thus, i prefer the WYSIWYG editors.

[Borek]

That's the learning curve. Once you get past the initial cliff it is not that hard

[xiankai]

would you recommend a guide then? preferably for chemists who just want to write equations

[Borek]

Learn general ideas at http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=9021

Shame that we have to link to our competitors

Very basic:

MnO_4^- - should render as MnO₄^-
MnO_{4}^{2-} - should render as MnO₄^2-

Dissociation constant:

K_a=\frac{[H^+][A^-]}{[HA]}

Note how curly brackets group expressions. Formatting is done completely automatically, in LaTeX you only describe formula. That's how TeX/LaTeX works when used for DTP.

OpenOffice uses its own engine, in some respects compeletely different. For example use of {} for charges is a little bit tricky and fractions are defined in a different way:

K_a = {[H^{{}+{}}][A^{{}-{}}]} over {[HA]}

Still, once you get used to that - it works perfectly. See my pH lectures.

http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-calculation&right=pH-salt-solution

Scroll down to the last equation on the page

{C_a sum from{i = 1} to{n} iK_{ai} left[ H right] ^{n-i}} over {left[ H right]^n+sum from {i =1} to {n} K_{ai}left[ H right]^{n-i}} + K_w over left[ H right] = { C_b sum from{i = 1} to{m} iK_{bi}left[ H right]^i K_w^{m-i}} over { K_w^m + sum from {i=1} to {m} left[ H right]^i K_{bi}K_w^{m-i}}+ left[ H right]

For me main reason for using OpenOffice is that it is free, as opposed to rather costly MSOffice. Functionality is similar, although OO is sluggish at times.

[enahs]

Step 1, get FireFox:
http://www.getfirefox.com

Step 2, install this Extension (It also works for Thunderbird, the email client):
http://abctajpu.mozdev.org/

Then, all you have to do is a right click on the text entry field and select the symbol you want, it has all Greek, plus so much more.
Really, it makes life much simpler.

[xiankai]

i dont know which version of firefox you use, but i use the latest one which is 2.x, and it is incompatible :O with that extension u recommended. still, the screenshots look enticing, i hope they'll update it soon!

[enahs]

I use the latest version of Firefox (2.0.0.3) and abcTajpu (1.3.5) and it works perfectly fine for me.

Why do you say it is incompatible? Did you try and install it and get an error?

[Yggdrasil]

I have firefox 2.0.0.3 and I'm trying to install abcTajpu 1.3.5, but I also get an error which says that there's an error because of an "invalid file hash (possible download corruption)."

[edit: But installing 1.3.4 worked]

[Donaldson Tan]

Are the symbols coming back?

Psi-Psi in plain alphabets just looks wierd. Haha..

[Ψ×Ψ]

I miss the psi.  Mitch is evil.