Recently discovered a new feature with MS Office 2010--it supports pseudo-latex syntax in its own formula editor.Actually this function is already available in 2007 but not well "manifested" until 2010 turns on a screen hint as I type the backward slash. To try this feature (either in 2010 or 2007), press alt+= and type \alpha to see the greek symbol to be brought up. An even better feature in this series is that I can customize these syntax in options>Proofing>AutoCorrect Options>Math AutoCorrect where a complete syntax is tallied.
This function is one of the many facets that are mysterically encapsulated in the additional "x" in the extension ".docx". "x" means "eXtensible". As is already an unmistakable trend in the computer socieity initiated from the begnining of this century, we have seen an explosion of "x" alliterated language names such as xhtml, xslt, xpath, xlink, xpointers, and other kinships like css, mathml, svg, and the new office extension docx, pptx, xslx, etc. All of these backtracks to the advent of the XML, which is a monster cousin of the simplistic html. Both XML and html are descended from SGML but as a subset and a single application respectively. While html is an application of SGML, XML is descended as a subset of SGML, preserving the power of giving birth to applications such as html--and it did! The xhtml is an application of XML which is rather the same thing as html but bears with absolute syntax restriction--for example, tags must be paired.
XML is a language for defining markup languages; XML is a meta-language. SGML is a meta-language too. It is used to define the markup language html. A markup language is an application for displaying texts, graphics, or data information in general. A meta-language specifies the organization of the data information by defining syntax rules on character-based source files.
Back to MS Office math input feature. If the past 1.5 decades scientific writing is dominated by latex + postscript. Then I see a genuine possibility in switching back to MSWord + pdf. As Word has now solved the layout merge of math formula and normal text, the aesthetic features of Word is now a true value attracted to me. Adding (colorful) graphics to any place in Word is much easier than in Latex, not to mention other multimedia objects. It also preserves formatting if I want to copy-paste from Word to PowerPoint, or Excel to Word.
Another very successful and extremely efficient math inputter is MathType. I have used it since ver4.0 to now ver6.6 and seen it has added translators for various destination laguages including latex, mathml, mathematica, etc. And it integrates well with MS Word (as a plug-in and appears as a tab in the ribbon of 2007).
Unlike latex, mathtype doesn't provide layout management, which can be exclusively done in Word. For the pure math formula input, the learning curve of MathType is a bit more steeper than that of latex, because to fully unleash the capability of mathtype, one needs to remember the shortcuts of those frequently used elements. For example, lowercase greek letters are typed by pressing ctrl+g followed by a english alphabet that corresponds to the greek one. Thus 'ctrl+g, a' will bring up the greek alpha. As you get familiar with the shortcuts, it is extremely faster than latex. To type alpha in latex, you need to hit 6 keys in sequence (\ a l p h a). In mathtype, it's just 3 hits (ctrl g a) and ctrl is much easier to locate than \. Besides this reduced key hits, an additional benefit in Mathtype is that it makes mistakes easier to correct. Mathtype provides a gui interface that displays the current final result of your input. You can select pieces of the formula and move them around places with your eye monitoring how it will look like. In latex, correction can also be accomplished, but with much more inconvenient procedures (Even in Lyx, I haven't discovered a way to drag formula pieces around.)
Since Office 2007, MathType has been re-engineered to integrate with Word's docx format via a two ways: the old OLE way, or the MathML to Office MathML way. The new Equation Editor in Word 2007 is re-engineered on the Office MathML language. It supports direct operation on the equation content, such as annotating or footnote. To do this, in MathType(ver>6.5)'s Preferences > Cut and Copy Preferences > MathML or Tex > MathML2.0(no namespace) (uncheck the square boxes below). Then always type in a indepent MathType window and select-copy-paste the equation from MathType to MSWord (as converted code in MathML and Word will then convert it into Office MathML objects).
The pdf conversion resolution is much better in Word--it seems all aesthetic elements are enhanced in pdf than in original Word, which is rather the opposite with latex-pdf. So I see a strong reason to harness the new power of docx than dive into the inproductive drill in those hidden-corner features of latex--just let the converter do the job.
