Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2014 October 21

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October 21

Importing equations and pictures from Word

I'm trying to write an article on the Rollett Stability Factor (my father-in-law Dr JM Rollett discovered it by accident in 1962 and we're trying to get the page ready for his 84th birthday in November). I have it all laid out and referenced etc in Word, however I'm finding it impossible to transfer over the very few equations and diagrams that it contains. Is there any kind of simple Cut and Paste or Save As way that will easily allow me to drop them in to the Wiki format?

The macro converter Word2WikiMedia doesn't help.

Would it be better to ask hand it over to an experienced editor or is that not the done thing in the Wiki community? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonhuwmac (talk • contribs) 21:48, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Unless we're talking about dozens of equations, just throw images (or some web-renderable format like Google Docs—not the Word document) up somewhere and any one of many people with LaTeX experience will probably be willing to type it up. --Tardis (talk) 03:10, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, and images are probably most fool proof in this case. Something like pandoc might be of some use in general, but MS word is horrible for interoperability of math. The diagrams will certainly have to be pulled out as image files. In theory they could be traced to svg, but that's also a pain and might not help much. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:19, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia allows registered users to set up a sandbox where one can practice rendering mathematical formulas of any kind. I have used it and found the learning curve rather simple. Also in the Help desk one can ask questions with answers usually forthcoming in less than an hour. I have also tried to move math in the other direction from Wikipedia to MS Word and found it impossible. Many distortions ensue. I think MS Word's math tools are full of bugs. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 16:57, 22 October 2014 (UTC)