StarDestroyer.Net BBS

did a quick search for this and i dont think anyone has asked.

Durandal what program did you use for your equation in your sig and is it free?

or

Does anyone know of a free program to write equations and export them as a useful format png\gif\jpeg etc?

He uses LaTeX, which is implemented on many operating systems. The most common one for Windows is MikTex. Be warned that the learning curve is very steep.

SoX wrote:Durandal what program did you use for your equation in your sig and is it free?

I rendered it with LaTeX.

Does anyone know of a free program to write equations and export them as a useful format png\gif\jpeg etc?

First of all, use forward slashes.

And I'm afraid that there's no such beast. This was done with a method pioneered by me. I used pdflatex to make a PDF of the equation, then opened it in Adobe Reader 6 (Reader's anti-aliasing is a bit sharper than Quartz's built-in anti-aliasing at smaller sizes) and took a screenshot when I had it zoomed to the appropriate size. Then I cropped the screenshot so it was just the equation.

From there, I made a new Photoshop file of the proper dimensions and filled it white. Then I created an alpha channel on the 1 layer in the file and pasted the equation directly into the alpha channel. Then I inverted it and played with the levels until I got a sharp equation (I created a test layer underneath to see how it'd look against various backgrounds). Then just add a sharp, 2- or 3-pixel, black outer glow to add some contrast and you're set. Export as PNG-24.

Couldn't you have just opened the PDF in Photoshop?

phongn wrote:Couldn't you have just opened the PDF in Photoshop?

I dunno. Maybe.

phongn wrote:Couldn't you have just opened the PDF in Photoshop?

Dur? Make things easy on himself? Since when?