0.11 Speeding up with mathml

Surprisingly, we are not always aware of things available to us. MS Word, for example, has the capability to reproduce a chunk of text with a stroke of key combination. This appears a great facility, particularly for speeding up writing any mark up codes, including MathML. This facility, though available all the time, is hardly ever used in normal text editing session with MS Word.

Using the facility to create macros in MS Word is simple. Matter of fact, this is one of the reasons for recommending an advanced text editing software like MS Word as against bare editors like Notepad for writing plane text MathML code lines.

We need to create macros for writing a set of code lines for the basic coding forms for most of the frequently used element and assign the same to a keyboard combination like ALT a, ALT b etc. Subsequently, when we need to write the code lines for MathML element in the basic form, we shall require to simply use the key combination and the code lines will be reproduced. It is warned that we must provide sufficient space between existing code or text lines so that the reproduced text by macros do not mix up. This techniques, involving macros, has the advantage that once a correct format is recorded, it is less likely that there would be any syntax error.

Creating macros for mathml basic forms of elements

In this section, the exact steps to create a macro with few code lines involving “mfrac” element are given. Before we proceed, we must realize that choosing a particular size and font to write the codes in macros is extremely important. The renderer accepts MathML in mono font for the code lines. What it means that we should encode our markups in one font only. A mix of many fonts results from “copy” and “paste” operations from different sources. We must avoid font mixing so that the renderer does not report error, while displaying the content.

Now, follow the steps to create a macro for the basic form of “mfrac” element :

Step 1: Open MS Word. Create a new document. Save the document as “test.doc”, ensuring that “save as type” is a word document. Note that we can not recordand store macros in plane format, which is used for encoding MathML.

Step 2: Select “Courier New” from the font drop down as shown here :

Select font size 12 from the adjacent drop down.

Step 3 : Write code lines for the basic form of the “mfrac” element as shown here :

<m:mfrac> <m:mi> x </m:mi> <m:mi> y </m:mi> </m:mfrac>

Step 4 : Select “Tools” from the top tool bar of MS Word and choose “Record New Macro” as shown below :

Step 5 : “Record macro” dialog box appears. In the “Macro name” give the name of macro, say “mfrac”. In the “Store macro in” select the name of document “test document” or the name of the document in which you are recording macro.

Step 6 : Press “keyboard” button. The “Customize Keyboard” dialog box appears. Put the cursor in the “Press new shortcut key” box (if not placed automatically). Press “Alt and f” to record the desired key combination to run the macro for “mfrac” code lines. Note that “Alt + F” text with capital “F” is automatically placed inside the box. In the “unassigned” box, select “test”.