Bugs in Word 2007 Equation Editor

2

280Z28

These are all in Word 2007 Beta 2

Here are some bugs and annoyances I've encountered with the equation editor
while typing up a couple of small math assignments.

1) (Bug) Write a sentence in "normal" style that includes an inline equation
in it. Select the sentence and click Heading 1 (or 2 or whatever) at the top
to change it to a heading. The heading style is bold, but the text in the
equation itself doesn't show as bold. Save the document, and close/reopen it
in Word. You'll find that the equation was actually converted to bold text
but just didn't show.

2) (Bug) Create a new equation that contains a double-struck character
(U+2115, U+211D for example). Easy to repeat by creating this in an equation:
"{x_n}_(n\in N)" where N is entered as "2115"+Alt+X. Save the document, and
close/reopen the document in Word. The double-struck N has been converted to
an regular N. Select the character, and re-enter it as "2115"+Alt+X. From now
on, that character will stay double-struck, but each time a double-struck is
used in a new equation you have to save/close/reopen/correct the character.

3) (Bug) Sometimes Word hangs after I hit Alt+= and start typing an
equation. It didn't do it during the first two documents I wrote, but it's
done it ~15 times on the third which was only 3 pages. I sent error reports
after these errors today. The freezes occur either right after I hit Alt+=,
or after I type the first character of the equation.

4) (Bug) Sometimes Display mode (centered block) equations will appear at a
position like they were indented about one tab from the left. If you hover
over them, you don't see the normal outline of an equation object. Hover over
the center where they should be displayed and you'll see the outlines in the
proper places?? The equations are not actually to the left, they just appear
to be there. Closing and reopening Word seems to correct this display error.

5) (Bug) Enter several equations, 1 per line, in Display mode (not inline).
Position this block of equations so some of the equations fall on the end of
one page and some of the equations fall at the top of the next. While this
situation is present, a cursor will not appear while attempting to edit
equations that are at the end of the first page of the split.

6) (Bug?) Inline equations word-wrap inside the equation. It seems that the
entire inline equation should move to the next line if it doesn't fit on the
current line. I have to manually put a Shift+Enter before an equation that is
wrapping in the middle to fix the problem.

7) (Bug/Annoyance) Arrow keys are extremely clumsy to use in/around
equations. Sometimes I'll hit an arrow key that would place me in or move me
within an equation, and the cursor will jump somewhere else in the document,
sometimes not even on the same page. This seems random but I've seen it
several times in creating these small documents.

8) (Bug) You cannot drag and drop a block of selected text that includes an
equation.

9) (Bug) Copy/paste of a sub-part of an inline equation in a block of
Heading 1 style to include as a part of an equation in normal text can lead
to weird cases of text in the normal style equation taking on the color of
the Heading 1 style? I only saw this once, but I avoided copy/paste between
styles after that because I couldn't fix it without deleting/remaking the
equation in the normal block.

10) (Recommend) The linear mode has a markup similar to but notably
different from LaTeX. Is there any way to have it (possibly optionally) parse
proper LaTeX markup? This seems like an obvious one - how can you expect to
lure users who went through the trouble of learning LaTeX by offering a
"plus" (pretty print editing, plus the rest of Word features) at the expense
of re-learning it all?


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2

280Z28

I just downloaded the Beta 2 Technical Refresh. In addition to
commentary on current states of some items in my last post, here is a
new bug:

1) (Bug) The new border when you hover over an equation is MUCH better.
However, it does tend to leave some artifacts when you move from inside
an equation to text outside of it.
These are all in Word 2007 Beta 2

Here are some bugs and annoyances I've encountered with the equation editor
while typing up a couple of small math assignments.

1) (Bug) Write a sentence in "normal" style that includes an inline equation
in it. Select the sentence and click Heading 1 (or 2 or whatever) at the top
to change it to a heading. The heading style is bold, but the text in the
equation itself doesn't show as bold. Save the document, and close/reopen it
in Word. You'll find that the equation was actually converted to bold text
but just didn't show.

This is not fixed. Additionally, I select a sentence of Heading 2 and
converted it to Normal to see if it would black/unbold things. It did
turn the equations black, but did not unbold them then OR when I
restarted Word. I selected that normal block and hit Normal again, and
this equation:

\forall n>N,x_n>M

Turned to this:

\forall n>N,x>M

but things did not unbold. Big problem if changing styles changes
equation content!
2) (Bug) Create a new equation that contains a double-struck character
(U+2115, U+211D for example). Easy to repeat by creating this in an equation:
"{x_n}_(n\in N)" where N is entered as "2115"+Alt+X. Save the document, and
close/reopen the document in Word. The double-struck N has been converted to
an regular N. Select the character, and re-enter it as "2115"+Alt+X. From now
on, that character will stay double-struck, but each time a double-struck is
used in a new equation you have to save/close/reopen/correct the character.

Appears fixed.
5) (Bug) Enter several equations, 1 per line, in Display mode (not inline).
Position this block of equations so some of the equations fall on the end of
one page and some of the equations fall at the top of the next. While this
situation is present, a cursor will not appear while attempting to edit
equations that are at the end of the first page of the split.

NOT fixed and intensely irritating.
8) (Bug) You cannot drag and drop a block of selected text that includes an
equation.

Fixed.
 
2

280Z28

Additional commentary on the state of these bugs in Beta 2 Tech Refresh.
These are all in Word 2007 Beta 2

Here are some bugs and annoyances I've encountered with the equation editor
while typing up a couple of small math assignments.

4) (Bug) Sometimes Display mode (centered block) equations will appear at a
position like they were indented about one tab from the left. If you hover
over them, you don't see the normal outline of an equation object. Hover over
the center where they should be displayed and you'll see the outlines in the
proper places?? The equations are not actually to the left, they just appear
to be there. Closing and reopening Word seems to correct this display error.

NOT fixed.
6) (Bug?) Inline equations word-wrap inside the equation. It seems that the
entire inline equation should move to the next line if it doesn't fit on the
current line. I have to manually put a Shift+Enter before an equation that is
wrapping in the middle to fix the problem.

The same action occurs in Tech Refresh; is this the correct action?
7) (Bug/Annoyance) Arrow keys are extremely clumsy to use in/around
equations. Sometimes I'll hit an arrow key that would place me in or move me
within an equation, and the cursor will jump somewhere else in the document,
sometimes not even on the same page. This seems random but I've seen it
several times in creating these small documents.

If it's not fixed, it's at least immensely better.
 
2

280Z28

Another additional bug:

When \Sigma or \Delta is typed in an equation and the space bar is
pressed, the following text starts appearing as plain text, not math
(italic) text. When \sum is typed and the space bar is pressed twice,
the following text also appears as plain text.

More commentary on changes in Word 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh:
3) (Bug) Sometimes Word hangs after I hit Alt+= and start typing an
equation. It didn't do it during the first two documents I wrote, but it's
done it ~15 times on the third which was only 3 pages. I sent error reports
after these errors today. The freezes occur either right after I hit Alt+=,
or after I type the first character of the equation.

I did experience another crash (two actually) while working with
equations. I submitted bug reports.
 

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