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# Maths and Chemistry formulas and diagrams [closed]

Hi,

we are working on digitalizing past question papers for a african students in remote west africa, the idea is to get it on an app so that they can have all of their past papers to practice as well as ebooks.

However, we are stuck, i do not know how to install these formulas or diagrams on writer or formulas.

by the way, we are looking for someone who is interested in collaborating on this as well as on editing the books on writer for publishing as epub files.

Tijan

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### Closed for the following reason the question is answered, right answer was accepted by Alex Kemp close date 2016-02-18 17:35:48.905386

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In Writer just click on menu Insert > Object >Formula

Then all it takes is to compose the formula. Some examples from the image linked (9, 10 and 15 refer to the number of the question)

"9." {{1} over {x} + {1} over {y}} over {x + y}

"10." nroot{3}{27 x^3 y^9}

"15." {2x^2 - 5x - 12} over {4x^2 - 9}

To insert a drawing go to menu Insert > Object > OLE Object > LibreOffice 4.x Drawing (or "Create from file" if you created it previously in Draw)

One piece of advice: it is extremely time consuming to replicate even a single page. You need a lot of time or a lot of people to do this...

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This answer merely adds to what @Pedro has already offered. I would highly recommend reading through the Writer Guide v4.0 and Math Guide v4.0 which are available here. The Math Guide in particular will assist with helping typeset these types of formula.

These are the various aspects of the layout that are going to prove challenging:

• A single column will always be easier to work with than multiple columns. This will also scale better to smaller screen sizes, such as devices that run apps.
• The number of non-text elements (i.e., formula objects and graphic objects) may make using an ordered list difficult. It may be better to set the content in a table, although I personally avoid this option as being just as inelegant as a list. Overall a plain leading numeric identifier, set in bold, is probably sufficient and preferable to using a list style for each paragraph. This is especially relevant in this case where the answers are provided via a secondary in-line ordered list format.
• In certain instances (e.g., the answers, particularly where these are formulas, such as in question 9) a table or columns may be required to more elegantly present the comparative options. This is another reason why I would advise against use of an overall table.
• The larger diagrams will be best re-created in Draw and imported (or cut / paste). Positioning or these objects is again likely most easily handled via use of a table or column layout on a per-question basis (as per the last point).
• Fractions (e.g., answers to question 5) are not currently handled well in OpenFormula. The standard representation for one and one ninth (e.g., 1 {1 / 9} tends to appear as eleven ninths, while 1 {1 over 9} and 1 {1 wideslash 9} both produce line height problems when anchored "As character". You will likely encountered other problems with typesetting the various formula included, that will require compromises.

The main thing to avoid having an expectation that the tight layout of the original either must be, or needs to be, replicated. A product like TeX is likely to produce something closer to what you require, however it has a significant learning curve.

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