Has the (MS Word) functionality of the MathType equation editor improved in the past three years?

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Level 1

18 points

Has the (MS Word) functionality of the MathType equation editor improved in the past three years?

Hello

MathType dropped support with the Mac when they couldn't cope with sandboxing. (Endnote seemed to manage it though.) So, for the past five years or so, we have been forced to use an add-in. This add in was clunky, and it had much less functionality than MathType 6. For example, with the latter, if I were to be writing in Garamond, I could have an equation in Garamond. With the add-in, that was lost and I had to use a math font.

I cannot trial MathType because it recognises that I had a subscription, which I dropped because it had become rubbish.

When I was writing my PhD in Word 5 back in 1993, I was able to format complex equations that adhered to standards in formatting. That was lost with the add-in. It is bonkers that we have regressed so far that word processing equations is like it was in the 1980's. Good software needs to be able to insert an equation inline with the same font and size as the text, it needs to facilitate switches in italicisation to confirm with standards, e.g., e = 0.1602 aC, e = 2.718. It needs to be editable within Word. The final equation needs to look like it is part of the document rather than copy and pasted in. Ideally, the software should work with PowerPoint too.

Some people think the MS equation editor is good enough. It is, if you have low standards. It cannot use relevant fonts, it changes text size because it thinks it knows fractions better than you, and it seems to refuse to believe that π = 3.142 is upright (ISO 80000-2).

Other people think that LaTeX is good enough. It is, I suppose. I wrote a book in LaTeX and I survived. The equations could be made correctly. But it is not collaborative.

Maybe there is other software, but editing within Word seems to be the dealbreaker. I don't know if equatio is any good, but it is expensive.

Has anyone any experience of recent iterations of the MathType add-in? I don't care if it is clunky. I just want professional equations. Or any other software? Search hits generally refer to the switch to the add-in, which was a while ago.

Many thanks for reading this and for any thoughts you might have.

Regards

Mark

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Aug 16, 2025 04:31 AM

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Answer 1

etresoft

Level 9

55,222 points

Aug 16, 2025 05:58 AM in response to Gauss

Gauss wrote:

Has anyone any experience of recent iterations of the MathType add-in? I don't care if it is clunky. I just want professional equations. Or any other software? Search hits generally refer to the switch to the add-in, which was a while ago.

Have you considered Apple Pages?

I haven't used Word Equations in many years. I just tried it and wasn't impressed. Supposedly it supports LaTeX, but I couldn't paste in an equation or edit it later. I could do both with Pages. Pages supports MathML too, but I don't know anything about that. Pages also doesn't support any 3rd party modules or macros.

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

122,052 points

Aug 16, 2025 07:24 AM in response to Gauss

MathType (Wiris) is currently available only by subscription (64USD/yr) for Microsoft 365/Office 2021/2024 for Mac, Windows, and Google Workplace. One can get Office 2024 Home (129USD) or Home and Business (159USD) from Stacksocial dot com. This is where I got my 34USD Office 2021 for Mac Home and Business in the past. I do not use MathType.

A short (1 min) Microsoft video on how to insert/edit/transform equations in Word.

The Equation editor in Apple's Pages, Numbers, and Keynote applications accepts a subset of LaTeX or MathML and is discussed further in About LaTeX and MathML support in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote - Apple Support. Because Apple uses the blahtex translator for this purpose, there is a link to the blahtex PDF on the preceding link that defines what LaTeX syntax can be entered in the equation editor.

Of note is that exporting Pages documents to Word may unpredictably wrap longer equations such as this Jacobian equation in Pages v14.4 on Sequoia v15.6:

and how that opens in Word v16.100 on Sequoia v15.6:

If you edit that Word document without changing this wrapped equation and then save it, opening it in Pages again displays the equation properly as in the first image above. Should you open the Word document in the current LibreOffice Writer, that location of the equation is simply an empty object box.

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