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math equation editor: how does "newline" works? Is it a bug?

Asked by JC Cheloven

Hi, I'm using OOo 2.4.1. I need writing a lot of equations, and quite like the math eq. editor bundled. But:

I'm not being able to use the "newline" command properly. The expected behaviour is that "newline" starts a new line in your equation. This works fine in some special cases, for example in:

a_ij + b_ij newline c_ij + d_ij

But I've found that if "newline" is preceded or followed by a +, -, or = sign (which is likely to be needed), only one line is obtained, with an error mark "¿" in the place where "newline" should have inserted a carriage return. For example in:

a_ij + b_ij = newline = c_ij + d_ij

I realize that it's probably a bug, but before to file it on launchpad or whatever, I'd like to know if there is a workaround, or if it is a known bug.

Thanks
( Note: Subscripts and the like work fine, are included in my examples just for fun)

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Ubuntu openoffice.org Edit question
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Solved by:
Andrei Dziahel
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JC Cheloven (jc-cheloven) said : 		#1

EDIT: In fact, it somehow depends. A "+" sign seems to be alright after "newline", but not before it. An "=" sign behaves badly despite it is after or before "newline".

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#2

I suggest you the best resource for Math, the ufficial OpenOffice.org forums: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/

Math forums: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewforum.phtml?f=6

Hope this helps

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Best Andrei Dziahel (develop7) said : 		#3

here's an workaround: http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=44460#desc8

Revision history for this message
JC Cheloven (jc-cheloven) said : 		#4

Thanks, it is a valid and very simple workaround.
Still, it should be better that "newline" would have a less conditioned behaviour, in my opinion.

For reference to someone else searching for this:
The problem occurs because the operator (=, +, ...etc) expects two arguments. A "newline" is not understood as such.
The workaround is to feed the operator with an empty argument {} when appropriate. Example:

underline underline A · underline b ={} newline
{}= underline X