Tuesday, 16 November 2010

Equation referencing in Word 2007

It baffles me that something so essential is not simple with micro$oft word. If you are going to want to put equations in your document, of course you will want to talk about them! (Otherwise, why bother?) To talk about them, of course you will need to reference them and the best way of doing that is with numbers. Why then is there no simple way to do this? Why give an equation tool but no easy numbering method?

So: how to insert a numbered equation in Word 2007 and reference it in the text. For the first part, I follow this blog post.
  1. Insert a 3 column, 1 row table.
  2. Format the table to fill 100% of the page width, with the column widths in percent as 15:70:15.
  3. Centre the text in the middle column and remove all table borders. Make the spacing below the table the same as other paragraphs.
  4. Insert your equation in the middle column. (I use insert>object>M$ equation 3.0 since the new equation package won't work on my machine).
  5. Insert a number in the right-hand column by insert>multilevel list. You can define your own so that the numbers are formatted like (x).

Here is the nice part (ha ha). Since my "equation gallery" is broken too, I can't save these shenanigans for easy re-use. To insert a new equation later, I simply copy the whole table and paste it elsewhere and change the equation! The numbers automatically sort themselves out (hallelujah).

To reference the numbered equation in the text:

  1. Highlight the equation number and insert>bookmark. Give it a nice name.
  2. Put the cursor at the place where you want your reference inserted and insert>cross-reference. Insert a reference of type "bookmark", select the name of your equation and insert the reference to the paragraph number (full context).

There. That was a complete pain, wasn't it? And it took about 40 mouse-clicks! Doesn't your equation look horridly rendered too? Oh, I love LaTeX and I want it back.