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

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.

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.

Here is the LaTeX source from the Pages equation editor that created the Jacobian example above:

\begin{equation*}
\color{Blue}J = \begin{bmatrix}
\frac{\partial\mathit{f}}{\partial\mathit{x_\mathsf{1}}} & \cdots & \frac{\partial\mathit{f}}{\partial\mathit{x}_\mathit{n}}
\end{bmatrix} =
\begin{bmatrix}
\nabla f_1\\\vdots\\ \nabla {f_m}
\end{bmatrix} =
\begin{bmatrix}
\frac{\partial f_1}{\partial x_l} & \cdots & \frac{\partial f_l}{\partial x_n}\\
\vdots & \ddots & \vdots\\
\frac{\partial f_m}{\partial x_1} & \cdots & \frac{\partial f_m}{\partial x_n}
\end{bmatrix}
\end{equation*}

The way to clean up the wrapped equation in Word (e.g. v16.100.3) display mode is to click on the equation and from the right vertical selection bar that appears on the equation, choose Change to Inline.

I remember those 27 diskettes required to install Office v4.2 on my Powerbook 540C in 1994. Only Mac in a Windows equipped consulting unit.

Gauss wrote:

It is unbelievable, but there was more functionality in Word in 1993 than there is now!

That's not unbelievable. The Mac was Word's primary platform in 1993. And it was really a different world back then.

The trouble with Pages is that it is not useful as a collaborative tool.

Neither was Word circa 1993. If your collaborators expect Word for Windows and they dictate your tools, then you have no option.

There are plenty of other options, but they might require a different set of collaborators. I don't think Word ever was a very welcome tool in the scientific community. I know my professors in grad school circa 1995 sure didn't appreciate it.

Have you considered Jupyter Notebooks? These days, that's the standard tool that people in my circles use.