1. pontiff
  2. Detexify Squared

Detexify Squared

By pontiff on July 16, 2009.

A friend sent me a link to Detextify2:

What is this?

Anyone who works with LaTeX knows how time-consuming it can be to find a symbol in symbols-a4.pdf that you just can't memorize. Detexify is an attempt to simplify this search.

How does it work?

Just draw the symbol you are looking for into the square area above and look what happens!

My symbol isn't found!

The symbol may not be trained enough or it is not yet in the list of supported symbols. In the first case you can do the training yourself. In the second case just drop me a line (danishkirel[[[at]]]gmail.com)!

I like this. How can I help?

You could spare some time training Detexify. You could also look at the source on GitHub and if you want to contribute you're welcome.

Who created Detexify?

Philipp Kühl had the initial idea and Daniel Kirsch made it happen.

Pretty cool. One step closer to the day when I write an equation on a piece of paper and the LaTeX just automagically appears for this at equation.

Tags
Science
science 2.0
Scientific Publishing

More like this

Charged Tape, Toy Models, and Dimensionless Parameters
One of the labs we do in the introductory E&M class I'm teaching this term involves investigating charged particles with sticky tape. If you haven't seen it before, "invisible" tape picks up an electric charge when it's peeled off a surface quickly, and with a little care, you can create both…
Free, As In Energy
Via social media, John Novak cashes in a Nobel Betting Pool win from a while back, asking: Please explain to me the relationship between energy, entropy, and free energy. Like you would explain it to a two year old child. Why? There is a statistical algorithm called Expectation Maximization…
Call for posts for the June Scientiae: Moving Forward
Alice and I are teaming up to host the June edition of Scientiae, the carnival by, for, and about women in science, engineering, technology, and math. As is the norm for the monthly Scientiae carnival, I get to choose a theme to help inspire and unite you all to write posts, though submissions on…
Sunday Function
Again I have to apologize for the sparseness of posting lately, but I've got two research projects going full blast and time has not been something I have a lot of. I'll still be writing at least a few times a week, and you can't beat the price. ;) In any case once things cool down just a little…

Except right now it seems to need training for everything.

@Sam:

I refer you to a quaint aphorism about walking, running, and the proper precedence thereof...

You might want to take a look at the "freehand formula entry system", which turns strokes into characters, and then tries to parse them into reasonable mathematical expressions.

http://research.cs.queensu.ca/drl/ffes/

It definitely could use a lot of overhauls, but it does more or less work.

By Aaron Denney (not verified) on 16 Jul 2009 #permalink