There was a time when I used to create Maths assignments for my mother who worked as a teacher. I used Microsoft Word to type and that means working with Mathematical symbols and complicated equations. There are a lot of ways to do that on the desktop version of Word, but if you don’t have access to a PC, then all you have is their mobile application.
But can you type complex mathematical equations using only the mobile application? The answer is yes. It can be a little tedious and offers a subpar experience. But it is possible. The best part is that you don’t need to be a Microsoft 365 customer for it to work. The feature is available for everyone. Even though some third-party keyboards and applications are more suited for this purpose, I would suggest this method.
Microsoft Office provides several ways to type mathematical symbols and equations on a desktop. However, there is only one way to achieve that on a phone; the Autocorrect method. MS Office comes with a long list of autocorrect substitutions for Mathematical symbols. If you have used LATEX for typing previously, you will find some similarities which should make your job easier. However, not all the LATEX functions are available. And some of them use a different syntax than their LATEX counterpart.
The first step is to invoke the Equation editor. To open the equation editor, select Home and click the drop-down menu to choose the Insert option. Once there, scroll down and click on Equation Editor to start using it.
Let us type some symbols. For example, if you need to type the division sign ( ), type \div
inside the equation editor and press the Escape key, and the division symbol will appear.
For some symbols, you need to type a bit differently. For example, to display a bar over a number, type \bar
and press the Escape key twice. At this point, a box will appear with a bar on top of it. Type your number inside the box, and you have your expression.
Microsoft Office supports a variety of symbols. I will share some of the most common ones below.
Text | Math Symbol |
---|---|
\angle | |
\alpha | |
\Alpha | |
\approx | |
\bar or \overbar | |
\because | |
\beta | |
\bigcap | |
\bigcup | |
\cbrt | |
\cong | |
\coint | |
\degC | |
\degF | |
\degree | |
\delta | |
\Delta | |
\div | |
\emptyset | |
\forall | |
\iiint | |
\iint | |
\int | |
\in | |
\infty | |
\lambda | |
\Lambda | |
\limit | (1 + 1/n)^n = e |
\mu | |
\ne | |
\ni | |
\notcontain | |
\notelement or \notin | |
\partial | |
\phi | |
\Phi | |
\pi | |
\Pi | |
\pm | |
\propto | |
\psi | |
\Psi | |
\qdrt | |
\quadratic | |
\rho | |
\Rho | |
\sigma | |
\Sigma | |
\sim | |
\simeq | |
\sqrt | |
\sqsubseteq | |
\sqsuperseteq | |
\subset | |
\subseteq | |
\sum | |
\superset | |
\superseteq | |
\therefore | |
\theta | |
\Theta | |
\upsilon | |
\Upsilon | |
\varepsilon | |
\varphi | |
\varrho | |
\varsigma | |
\vartheta | |
\wedge | |
\xi | |
\Xi | |
\zeta | |
\Zeta | |
~= | |
+- | |
-+ | |
« | |
<= | |
-> | |
>= | |
» |
I haven’t covered complicated structures such as Integrals, Matrices, and Determinants. For those, I would suggest you use the desktop version of Office. However, for basic typing, the table above should suffice.
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