By default, Latex will print text within formulas in italics, omitting white spaces. Now if you need to add normal text into a formula or even write a formula using words, you can do this with the text-command inside the math-environment:
\text{...}
Example:
\text{velocity} = \frac{\text{distance}} {\text{unit of time}}
Btw. The “text-command” will also take care of the spaces, which would otherwise be ignored.
Note:
Spaces in the math-environment can be produced using:
\;for a thick space,\:for a medium space,\,for a thin space and\!for a negative thin space.
Using the math-environment align to display a series of equations, whole lines of text can be added in between using the “intertext”-command without affecting the alignment of the equations:
\begin{align}
...
\intertext{...}
...
\end{align}
Example:
\begin{align}
F = f_1+f_2+f_3+...+f_n
\intertext{can be written as}
\sum_1^n{f_i}
\end{align}
October 2, 2008 at 2:45 pm |
Not exactly sure how powerful \text is, but in case it doesn’t work or doesn’t do what you want, try \mbox instead. It’s just a box that, within a math environment or not, uses the font of the surrounding text.
October 3, 2008 at 10:01 am |
It’s soooo ugly seeing variable names in formulas written without \text{} or \mbox{}… I think it’s one of the most common mistakes…
nice post!