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Do you know ho can i call a reference to an equation using \ref or \eqref and obtain (name of the equation) instead of the standard counter?


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What to you mean, "name of the equation"? How is this name defined? – mpg Nov 4 '10 at 15:10
I think what Abramo means is to write something like \eqname{eqn:Stokes} to produce something like Stokes equation in the document (instead of \eqref{eqn:Stokes} which produces (1)). Abramo, am I right? – Juan A. Navarro Nov 4 '10 at 16:09
up vote 19 down vote accepted

If you use the amsmath package you can do


By \eqref{eqn:Stokes} ...

Is that what you want?

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@Matthew: I'd always recommend using \eqref{eqn:Stokes} instead of (\ref{eqn:Stokes}). By the way, there's a closing brace missing ... – Hendrik Vogt Nov 4 '10 at 16:03
Yeah, this is what i was searching for, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work with 'eqnarray' – Abramo Nov 4 '10 at 17:42
Don't use eqnarray, it is horrible. Use amsmath's align and friends instead. – Willie Wong Nov 4 '10 at 17:48
@Hendrik: For some reason I never got into the habit of \eqref although I agree it's better. Thanks also for pointing out my missing brace (and to Khaled I guess for fixing it). – Matthew Leingang Nov 4 '10 at 17:57
@Hendrik: I like using the fncylab package and then \labelformat{equation}{(#1)} so that I can just write \ref{eqn:Stokes}. Though then it requires more work NOT to get the parentheses. – Ryan Reich Nov 9 '10 at 11:14

The \tag{your name here} construct can be used inside \begin{equation} .. \end{equation} and the amsmath \begin..end{align} constructs in order to give equations visible names instead of numbers:

  \tag{Super Fun Equation}
  y = 3x

Labels can then be used to refer to names in references:

  \tag{Super Fun Equation}
  y = 3x
See \eqref{eqn:superfun} for an awesome equation % See Super Fun Equation for ...
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