how do u get rid of unwanted brackets in formulas?

[simpatico]

how do u get rid of unwanted brackets used only for the formula editor to understand that the whole equation is to be square rooted for example. When u place them in word 2007, they are then removed automatically and the square root symbol is extended over all the area that was confined by the brackets.

[narf]

Could you please cut and paste a sample formula here? Include both the formula as entered in the formula editor and how it appears in the document along with some specific information of how you would like it to appear.

We can then look into this a little further.
thanks --fran

[simpatico]

I cannot show how it appears, as that is an image object.

f''(x)=((e^x(2x^2-x-1))'(2x-1)-e^x(2x^2-x-1)(2x-1)') over (2x-1)^2 newline
(e^x(2x^2-x-1))'=
(this is the formula).

Basically the first bracket and the one before over appears but visually it's useless, it's only required so that the formula editor knows how to handle the fraction. I want it without those brackets.

[narf]

Thank you for submitting a sample formula.

Can you please replace the two brackets you mentioned with curly brackets, "{ } " ?

Here is your sample formula with the curly brackets:

[simpatico]

yes, exactly. How about getting larger brackets, like in this case:

= (x^2 - {1 over x})^{1 over 2}
Here the brackets should be bigger (like in MS word 07).

[pluby]

[simpatico]

not an issue of font size. In MS Office 07 and in latex (i think) ...
take for example that when you square root an equation in neoffice the square root gets bigger to cover the whole equation.

Such resizement seems not to occur with the brackets.

[narf]

The formula format is part of NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code. I am not familiar with all the Equation Editor commands but I did find some documentation as part of OpenOffice.org which is applicable to this. Please go to the OpenOffice.org Users Guide 2 and take a look at Chapter 16, Math Objects: The Equation Editor.

In that chapter I found the following information:
Use the commands left( and right) to make scalable brackets.

[simpatico]

Hello, I've noticed that for some reason the equation editor garbled my equations code with other words i didn't enter. Cannot i get the original writing code?
eg:
size 12{ left ( sqrt { left (x rSup { size 8{3} } - 1 right )} right ) ital "'=" { {1} over { left (2 sqrt { left ( left (x rSup { size 8{3} } - 1 right )' right )} right )} } = { {1} over { left (2 sqrt {"3x" rSup { size 8{2} } } right )} } } {}
I wrote note: "size 12" for example.

[simpatico]

That was because I saved the doc as .doc instead of .odt

[narf]

Unfortunately, if the formula is not displayed in a .doc file exactly as it is in a .odt file then most likely the problem is that NeoOffice cannot fully convert your formula to Microsoft Word format. While NeoOffice can accurately convert most documents, there are some documents that it cannot. Microsoft Word is a set of proprietary file formats so non-Microsoft applications like NeoOffice have had to reverse engineer Microsoft's file format. As a result, the native format of NeoOffice is .odt format and there can be a loss of formatting when saving as Word format. This is usually more apparent with complex elements such as formulae.

If you need to distribute the document to people who do not have NeoOffice or OpenOffice.org, consider exporting the file to PDF. That file will not be editable but it will be readable. Otherwise your best bet is to stick with Microsoft Office.

--fran