Typing Math Symbols and Equations on a Mac

Learn how to type math symbols like the division sign, single-character fractions and more. Find out how you can type complex math equations in Pages.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to type math symbols and equations on your Mac. 
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Now when using your Mac you may come across math symbols, math equations, or you may need to type them yourself. So it is useful to know all these different techniques. I'm going to use Pages here in this example but you could use the same techniques in other apps as well. Now the first thing is the simple way of doing it just using the basic keys on your keyboard. You may not want to actually use these but you may see them all the time online. For instance, when you type an equation, like 1+2 it is just two numbers and then the symbol in-between them. You could see that symbol right there on your keyboard. But what if you wanted to use multiplication. Notice that there isn't a multiplication symbol on your keyboard anywhere. However, you may see it as something like 5*7. An asterisk may be used in place of a multiplication symbol. This is very common. That's how you do it when you're programming on the computer. So all the computer languages use that symbol. So that may leak over into other documents you may see even if you're not programming. So an asterisk, on a US keyboard is Shift 8, that stands for multiplication. 
Sometimes you may see somebody that doesn't know this use the letter x instead. That's used in mathematical equations for other things, like variables. You may see letters used like this for an algebraic equation. So using x for multiplication can be a problem. 
Now you'll notice there also is no division symbol on the keyboard. So instead usually the slash / key is used. So for 2 divided by 7 you may see it like this 2/7.  The slash kind of simulate s the idea of having 2 above the 7. The line is kind of diagonal so it gives that impression. Now if you do want to type a division symbol you actually can on a Mac keyboard. Use the Option key and then slash and this will type a division symbol. This isn't used generally in programming but if you're just doing it for typesetting purposes, just to show something in a Pages document or an email, then you can use this symbol pretty easily. But unfortunately there is no matching symbol for that for multiplication. So a lot of times the x is just used. 
Now unfortunately there is no equivalent multiplication symbol that you can type with the keyboard. But there are a lot of other math symbols. To see what is available the best way is to go into System Settings, and then go to Accessibility and then go to Keyboard. Then turn On the Accessibility Keyboard. This brings up this little mini-keyboard here that shows you what you're typing. We're just going to use it to actually see what happens when you press the Option Key. So if you press the Option Key you'll notice all the symbols you can see here. There's that division symbol there. But you can see a variety of other math symbols like this and this. If you hold the Shift Key you'll also see what you get when you hold Shift, Shift and Option give you these symbols including some other math symbols there as well. So you can get an idea of not only what is available but how to type it. So, for instance, if I wanted to type a not equals symbol you could see I'm holding down the Option Key here and it's the equals key with the Option Key held down that will do that. 
However, you can access a whole variety of different symbols using the Emoji & Special Character Viewer. So you just hold Control Command and then Space or on newer Macs you hold the Globe Key down and press E and this brings up the Emoji & Special Character Viewer here and you can search for things. So if I search for Division you could see I get two different symbols. One is actually called the Division Symbol and one is called the Division Sign. I think the Division Sign looks a bit better so you can use that. You can see that this is, in fact, the same character as if I do Option Slash. 
Now for multiplication you can do the same thing. Search for Multiplication you'll find a few things here including a multiplication x and a Multiplication Sign. This one, I think looks pretty good and it is definitely the right symbol to use. It is a proper multiplication sign. But the only way to type it is to use the Emoji & Special Character Viewer. Now when you do bring this up you'll notice that you get a lot of math symbols when you Search. But to make sure you get them all click this button here at the upper right hand corner. That will take you into the Character Viewer. The Emoji Viewer and the Character Viewer basically can toggle back and forth between each other. So if I click here again you could see it goes back to this and there it goes to the Character Viewer. The Character Viewer allows you to browse different categories including Math Symbols. So you select that and now you can see all the different math symbols. If you don't see math symbols there click here at the top left and then Customize List. Then scroll down and look for Math Symbols and make sure that is checked. As long as that is in the list here on the left then in the regular mode here you'll find something if you search for it. So if you search for Integral, for instance, you'll find those symbols right here. 
Now if you want to type fractions you can do better than something like that. One of the things you can do is there are some special symbols for specific fractions. So let's bring up the Emoji & Special Character Viewer again and I'm going to type Fraction and you could see I come up with a variety of different fractions here. So if I wanted to use, say, three quarters I could just use this ¾ and this is a single character representing three quarters.
Now sometimes you want to raise a number to a power, like say seven squared. So I can do 7 but if I type 2 I just get 72. In most word processing apps I can go to Format and then Font and then look for Baseline and then Superscript. Then I can change this to a superscript number so it is raised up and I can actually go in here and use Raise and Lower to raise it up even more. So I can keep doing that until I get it to the right height and then maybe Copy and Paste that to make it easier throughout my document. But there are also special characters for this. So if I look in the Emoji & Special Character Viewer and I look for the number 2 you could see I've got one here that is Superscript 2. I can use that instead. You'll find the same thing for other numbers as well. There's superscript 7 for instance. 
Now if you're working on a document that really needs some serious math equations in it then Pages has a special feature to allow you to really go wild with math equations. If you go to Insert there's the ability to insert an equation. Now you can type something using one of two languages. Latex or Math ML. Now if I just type something really simple like that it doesn't look any different. But if I know the code to type then I can get a really nice looking equation here. So, for instance, if I use the carat symbol, which on US keyboards is Shift 6 and then put a number after that you can see I get a really nice version of raising a number to a power. If I want a fraction I can do backslash, frac, and then in curly brackets put the numerator and then in the next set of curly brackets put the denominator. Then I get a very nice looking fraction. I can even type more things in here. So I can do this and I can do that. Now you can see I get a nice equation. When I hit Insert notice that this appears here as a separate element. It works just like an image. You can go to Arrange and you can have it Stay On Page, Move a Text, it will default inline with the text but you can have it work as a regular element here that you move around on the screen. Then you can also Resize it and everything. If I double click it goes back in here and I can Edit again.
There's all sorts of special symbols like for instance I can go slash times and you could see I get a multiplication symbol. DIV will give me a division symbol. I can do slash int for an integral symbol, and then slash pi will give me a nice pi symbol like that. So there is a ton of stuff you can do. These can get really complex. Learning how to do this is like learning a whole new programming language. So you want to Search for Latex and examples and Latex Tutorials online to find out more. 
Now I want to give you one more set of examples. But this time in Numbers instead of Pages. In Numbers if you type a formula, I'm going to start a formula here with the equals symbol, and then type it. Notice I'm going to use an asterisk to represent multiplication and it will actually show the multiplication symbol instead of an asterisk if you're inside of a formula. So now I can do this and if I press Return notice I get the results there. So if I want to see the actual formula I can select it and I could see it here at the bottom left. But I don't see it here in the cell. However, if I double click here to Edit again and then go to the left there is a little dropdown menu here. I can select from Show Formula as Text or Convert Formula to Text in Cell. If I select Convert Formula to Text in Cell then I actually get the formula here. You could see here it says This Is Text. So instead of this being a formula with a calculated result it's now a way to actually type a formula like this complete with the multiplication symbol or if I do a division symbol like that you could see the slash is compared to the division symbol and then I click here and say Convert Formula to Text in Cell and I get the division symbol. But another way to do it is to actually type the formula, like that, and get the result. Then in a different cell use a special function called Formula Text. Then refer to the first cell. Formula Text will actually show you the formula from that cell. 
So there are bunch of different  hand techniques that you should know if you often type math equations on your Mac. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 8 Responses to “Typing Math Symbols and Equations on a Mac”

Moro Pant

2 years ago

This is very help. Did not know that LaTeX can be used. Thanks a bunch!

Peter Nachtwey

I use LaTeX. I didn't know pages supported LaTeX. The option character can come in handy for simple things.
I have been using Mac and didn't know this. Maybe because it wasn't supported early on so I found other means...

Claudio Silvaggi

Thanks brother... ❤️🙏

cesar

Thank you Gary, it is VERY usefull tutorial

Alan Driver

This is a truly useful video tutorial. Many thanks for posting it.

Ken Nellis

Very useful. Good to know that Pages supports MathML, which is also supported by Safari. Thank you! FWIW, the “division symbol” is the emoji variation of the “division sign” so it comprises two Unicode characters: the base “division sign” character (U+00F7) followed by the “VARIATION SELECTOR-16” (U+FE0F), but renders as a single glyph. The “multiplication sign” also has an emoji equivalent.

Comments Closed.

Typing Math Symbols and Equations on a Mac

Comments: 8 Responses to “Typing Math Symbols and Equations on a Mac”

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