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• • June 23, 2010 at 5:58 am #56145
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Does anyone here use MathMagic?

    https://www.mathmagic.com/produ…..t/pro.html

    I'm curious how it compares to InMath and some other math options. Seems like it has a very good feature base, and they've been around for many years.

  • July 2, 2010 at 7:31 pm #56246
    Jamies

    Member

    Both of InMath and MathMagic are for creating equations in InDesign documents but their appoaches are completely different

    InMath forms an equation by placing characters and symbols in its specific position to make the result look like an equation. So the equation is not saved as a separate image file but rather integrated into the InDesign's text property.

    So it is a bit more flexible in changing the font size and style of each component of your equation.

    InMath plugin also works with InCopy. If your workflow has some InCopy users for data entry, they can also work with InMath.

    InMath can handle most K12 equations but it takes more time if you have to deal with complex equations or multi-lined equations. So if your equation work should handle lots of equations and comlex equations often including higher Ed level, MathMagic is definitely the way to go.

    InMath does not offer any import/export options for other equation formats. So if you have to import any ready made equations, saved in MathType, MathML, LaTeX, out of luck at the moment.

    And you may not export the equations as a separate external image unless you make a screen shot.

    Actually it is not an equation editor but more like a special text editor with special styles for Math.

    As all the equation handling features are implemented as a plugin, InMath used to have some bugs and compatibility issues when opening InMath equation embeded InDesign documents in a newer version of InDesign.

    And InMath only runs witin InDesign so you have to run InDesign to use it. MathMagic and MathType can be used as a standalone application and works with other applications as well.

    InMath is quite expensive though(495 Euro) and multi-user discount not available unless 10 or more. And you have to purchase an upgrade whenever Adobe releases a newer version. If youare going to stay tuned with InDesign for many years, you will end up with paying much more. Or, if you have to maintain multiple versions of InDesign(such as CS2, CS3, CS4) for some reasons, for example to work with multiple clients, you will have to purchase each plug-in separately. (Math Magic comes with all plug-ins for InDesign 2.0 or newer if you pay once: US$499.0)

    So, if your project is for a short term for a few books, and if you don't mind typing all equations and you don't face any critical deadline, and if more controls over font/size/style/color is important for you, InMath might be the one for you.

    ===

    Math Magic has been around for more than 10 years as a standalone equation editor and as a Quark Xtension since Quark 3.x. So you can tell MathMagic is the most advanced full featured equation editing solution for tech writers and designers/publishers once you try it.

    It comes with all the bells and whistles, and backed up with productity if you have to handle lots of equations often.

    MathMagic Pro eidtion comes two programs: MathMagic application and MathMagic plugin. MathMagc app is the very standalone equation editor application. this app works with other applications and documents via copy-paste or drag-drop just like othr applications.

    MathMagic plug-in is a special addition for InDesign and this adds some UI to InDesign menubar and toolbar and right-button clicked contextual menu, such as “New Equation”, “Edit Equation”. Once you select “New Equation”, it opens an equation editor window. All the equation writing and editing is done by the external MathMagic Pro application. once done, it places the equation into InDesign doc as an EPS image. You can make it externally saved and linked, or embeded in the doc, from its Preference window. MathMagic pro comes with multiple plug-ins: indesign 2.0, CS, CS2, CS3, CS4, CS5. So you can use MathMagic pro with all versions of Indesign. Althogh Mathmagic company says Math Magic enables you to write equations from within InDesign doc, technically mathmagic plug-in runs its external Mathmagic application. As MathMagic application can read some common math expressions such as MathML, LaTeX, Google Doc equation, Wiki equation, and even MathType equation and some MS Word equations, you will find MathMagic useful if you receive those files. As equations are placed in EPS format in InDesign doc, once you can send the Indesign documents to anyone. They don't have to install MathMagic if they just view or print the document. (Before pringing, they will have to install used fonts to avoid missing fonts as you may understand. But for viewing, EPS preview should work fine without installing fonts unless they do proof reading). So InDesign documents with Mathmagic equations can be shared more easily with others and even across InDesgin versions because EPS is kind of a standard image format all Adobe design products support natively.

    When mathmagic plugin installed, you can simply double click on an equation to re-edit it. this would be the main benifit of MathMagic. Other strengths include automatic baseline alignment when inserted as an inline equation in a text box; you can copy & paste EPS equation within or across your InDesign documents; all equations can be extracted from InDesign document as external EPS files or converted to other formats such as MathML if your clients want.

    Math Magic does not support InCopy.(MathMagic could be installed in InCopy but inserting an equation not worked. We could not figure it out at least. Not sure if they support CS5).

    Mathmaigc pro is also expensive ($499) but they have Educational pricing and multiuser discounts and other pricing options. Actually too many options… a bit confusing when you first visit their order page. MathMagic windows version is still not as good as their Mac version. It looks they update their Mac version more often. Their Widnows installer did not work properly so some manual touches were required.

    ===

    MathType can be a reasonable and simple solution if your budget is tight and your client does not care much about the equation quality.

    You can write multiple equations using MathType, save them as EPS file, then place the equations one by one from within your InDesign doc. However, inserting an inline equation manually is a bit inconvenient and the automatic baseline alignment is not supported.

    And if you have to reedit an equation, you need a full round trip, which takes more time than MathMagic. But under $100, you get a solution. Or, you can use MathMagic Personal Edition ($69) as MathMagic offers more feature and better equation quality(personal preference) than MathType in general. MathMagic Personal application does not come with indesign plugin. So just like MathType, you can write your equation and save it as EPS or PDF, then manually place it from Indesign. MathMagic personal edition is a bit cheaper than MathType. MathMagic personal edition comes with most of MathMagic Pro features but color EPS is not supported. So if you have to use color in your equation, you will have to use MathType or MathMagic Pro.

    If you use MathMagic Pro for InDesign layout, your front-end equation data entry team can use MathMagic Personal edition for a better workflow although Mathmagic Pro can read most MathType EPS files as well. (Mathmagic could not convert some MathType symbols corrctly)

    Sorry for typos if any but hope this helps.

    Please correct me if anything wrong. And we'd like to hear from you guys if you have other solutions or tips.

  • July 6, 2010 at 2:59 pm #56276
    Johan

    Member

    Hi,

    At our company https://www.progressomedia.nl/ we use Mathtype and Mathmagic. We have several workflows for different publishers. Mathmagic is an ideal plugin to make equations and/or convert equations from word documents.

    There is one problem we have with mathmagic and i do not know if it is a problem of mathmagic or a mac osx server configuration that we have.

    Let me explain.

    For some time we have made equations as a link. That is normal thing, but we have seen that for some reason equations were not saved good enough on the server and as a result, they were deleted after a while. Really irritating. So therefore, we embed the equations now, and seems to work better. We do not lose them now. Just in case, we make a extra copy of the indesign document.

    Beside that, Mathmagic is a really good workflow tool to make equations in seconds.

    For Mathtype, we use scripts to place and positioning them in indesign. We get word documents with Mathtype equations (mostly 600 or more in a chapter). So automation is very important. There are some problems with making postscript from indesign documents containing Mathtype equations, so we export to pdf directly. Then we make a print. Another problem is the saving of several symbols. They do appear in Mathtype, but not in Indesign or so. The only solution is to export to pdf. If someone has a solution for it, please let me know.

  • July 8, 2010 at 11:02 am #56304
    Jamies

    Member

    Not sure if ours were the same problem but we had some issues in saving mathmagic EPS files externally when the InDesign document name or its path had some European characters. This works better now with thier newer updated plugin.

    And we've also asked mathmagic company to support both options(saving externally and linking, and embeding) so we can save the equatoin eps externally first and then embed it so that we can have two copies at the same time. They promised to support this last year but no progress until now.

    —

    If your MathType equations are using some type 1 PS fonts, or the EPS files were created on Windows and then brought over to Mac, it looks their EPS printing problem happens more often.

    So, you may want to use OpenType or TrueType fonts in MathType equation, if this is an option for you or for your clients.

  • July 13, 2010 at 5:08 pm #56345
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    These are great comments. Thank you!

    Certainly, InMath's ability to use similar fonts in equations to the body text around the equations can be pretty nice. But MathMagic's ability to work with MathML and LaTex equations is pretty amazing.

  • July 16, 2010 at 9:16 am #56372
    Jamies

    Member

    MathMagic also allows you to use all the fonts installed in your system.

    But two things to watch out.

    – MathMagic had some issues with some Type 1 PS fonts, especially if you change the style(face) in mathmagic window or if you use some Latin characters. (mathmagic support staff recommended to use OTF or TTF, or convert Type 1 to OTF using a font utility).

    – Mathmagic symbols (except Greek) stick to its own Symbol fonts. (this is true with InMath and Mathtype too).

  • September 7, 2010 at 10:35 am #56945
    indesignmathtools.com

    Member

    movemen is about to announce MathType equation import and MathML import/export for InMath. It'll be available for CS4 and CS5 with their new math tools.

    Find more about it soon on https://indesignmathtools.com/products

  • October 12, 2010 at 11:22 am #57338
    Mikizil Vladislav

    Member

    Let me show how I work with MathType in InDesign.
    Thanks.

  • October 12, 2010 at 2:27 pm #57340
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    This is a great help! Thank you, Mikizil!

  • November 10, 2010 at 9:16 am #57660
    Niko H.

    Member

    For Mathtype, we use scripts to place and positioning them in indesign. We get word documents with Mathtype equations (mostly 600 or more in a chapter). So automation is very important. There are some problems with making postscript from indesign documents containing Mathtype equations, so we export to pdf directly. Then we make a print. Another problem is the saving of several symbols. They do appear in Mathtype, but not in Indesign or so. The only solution is to export to pdf. If someone has a solution for it, please let me know.

    Here is solution for this case

    https://forum.rudtp.ru/showthre…..amp;page=1

    i'll translate

    1. Any version of MathType 6.6a and up have a bug that prevents the general case of correct output in postscript from ID CS3-CS4, generated by MathType equations.

    The solution (thanks to the 1998):
    open the file mathtype.exe with hex-editor, find the ascii-fragment

    /ns {cf sf} bdef

    and carefully instead “b” type “spacebar”.

    Note. ID CS2 does not have this problem.

  • February 20, 2011 at 5:42 am #58757
    Johan

    Member

    Hi Niko,

    A bit late, but thanks for the post. But we use the macversion of Mathtype. And that is really problem. Maybe it is better to make a pc only workflow for mathtype and forget about the mac platform. Mathtype for mac is a real problem. I am not so concerned about the the fact that exporting to pdf is the only way to get an output from indesign, but the disappearing of particular characters when placing the equations in indesign.

    Because we use the mac as default and people can edit equations easily, i am thinking of this workflow.

    1. Export the equations from Word 2007 (pc only) with mathtype plugin

    2. Use the convert option of Mathmagic (mathtype–>mathmagic)

    3. Automatic placement of mathmagic equations with the right baseline settings.

    Maybe you have another idea?

  • July 2, 2011 at 12:12 am #59976
    udev25

    Member

    1. Any version of MathType 6.6a and up have a bug that prevents the general case of correct output in postscript from ID CS3-CS4, generated by MathType equations.

    The solution (thanks to the 1998):
    open the file mathtype.exe with hex-editor, find the ascii-fragment

    /ns {cf sf} bdef

    and carefully instead “b” type “spacebar”.

    Thanks for the solution we are facing one more problem in Mathtype, In the below equation,

    “35-9/60″ here in 60, 0 appears like bold in InDesign but that is a normal text, when we check it in Illustrator the zero appears twice but in Math type only one zero is there, Why this duplication coming in the eps placed in InDesign but it is not in MAthtype.

    Any suggestions..

  • July 14, 2011 at 6:37 am #60049
    Rhiannon Miller

    Member

    If you open a Mathtype eps file in Illustrator you'll see lots of very odd things. I find that if you have an equation along the lines of

    (x + y) = (a + b)

    then the eps file will contain a number of different overlapping text objects, each containing part of the information, so (if you ungroup and separate them) you'll get separate text objects containing

    x y

    a b

    ( )

    ( )

    + =

    +

    The spacing between the characters within each text object is set by tracking.

    This is really weird, and a great nuisance if you need to edit the eps file in Illustrator rather than in Mathtype. And you might want to do this if you need to change the fonts – another real problem with Mathtype is its lack of support for full Unicode sets. By default MathType uses Symbol for Greek characters, and fakes an italic for them by skewing. It tells you that you can get a wider variety of glyphs using 'Insert Symbol' to add characters in whatever font you choose, but when you actually try this you get a tiny subset of characters from your font. Generally these days, if there are Greek letters in the text then I'm using actual Greek characters in whatever font I'm using, and it's nice if the glyphs in the displayed equations match this.

    I've just been testing MathType 6.7 for the Mac, which has just been released, and am disappointed to find that it has the same problems. On the plus side, it now allows saving as PDF, and when this file is opened in Illustrator each character is its own text object, which is better than the very odd tracking from EPS. However, from the PDF, Greek characters come through as outlines rather than glyphs.

    I've tried the demos of both MathTools (was InMath) and MathMagic, but the big reason for continuing with MathType is that it's the only one which can automatically extract equations from Word documents. Actually, I emailed movemen a few months ago asking about features and pricing (as instructed on their website). I never received any response, so I wonder whether MathTools is still in production. But it looks like they've got some problems on their hands.

  • February 13, 2012 at 11:43 am #61625
    MM Equation

    Member

    FYI, new 8.0 version of MathMagic Pro for InDesign released recently.

    It also supports Apple's iBooks Author and other iApps via Drag&Drop or Copy&Paste (both directions to re-edit equations) in high quality PDF format by default.

    Free trial can be downloaded from

    http://www.mathmagic.com/download

  • April 3, 2012 at 1:53 pm #61942
    MM Equation

    Member

    Just in case, if your AdBlock was turned on and if you did not see the banner message on top of this Forum page yet,

    We are glad to offer you, all InDesignSecrets.com Forum Fans, the 1-month Free License of MathMagic Pro for InDesign.

    If you are interested in using the software or if you just need to use some Math equations or Scientific symbols from time to time, please feel free to request your copy here.

    https://www.mathmagic.com/order…..4inds.html

    Please note that this is available for a limited period only.(~April 30 2012)

    Thank you.

  • July 23, 2012 at 8:25 am #62660
    MM Equation

    Member

    MathMagic Pro users,

    InDesign CS6 plug-in is available (for both Mac OS X and Windows) and included in the latest installer.

    So the current MathMagic Pro works with all InDesign versions (CS~CS6).

    —————–

    Fully working free versions are also available for download – “MathMagic Lite for Mac OS X” and “MathMagic Lite for Android”.

    https://www.mathmagic.com/download/

    Thank you.

  • January 30, 2014 at 6:28 am #66883
    MM Equation

    Member

    New InDesign Plug-ins included MathMagic Pro v8.7 for Mac OS X now support batch applying of new fonts / sizes / StyleSets to those equations.
    They also support direct conversion of Plain TeX, LaTex, MathML and some natural text based math reading into equation right within InDesign doc.
    And reverse conversion of an equation into any text based expressions, such as MathML, LaTeX, AsciiMath.
    Windows Plug-ins will also support these features in the near future.
    (These features have long been available in the MathMagic Pro application side on both Mac & Win.)

    InDesignSecrets members can get a 2-month License of MathMagic Pro for Free for a complete evaluation. (for a limited period only)

    https://www.mathmagic.com/indesignsecrets.html

  • March 27, 2014 at 3:12 pm #67773
    MM Equation

    Member

    This special offer – MathMagic Pro for InDesign 2-month Free Subscription License – is about to expire.
    So, please get your copy while it is available.

    Both Mac & Win versions can be requested by one person.

    ——

    MathMagic will introduce some new features this year, such as importing MS Word documents into InDesign together with those equations included in Word docs, converting of InDesign exported XML file with EPS equations into XML + MathML format.

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