LaTeXiT and Pages; fixing misaligned equations
This follow-up post shows how to fix the placement of inline LaTeX equations placed in Pages.app by the LaTeXiT.app application on Mac OS X. This issue was highlighted in a comment by reader Fabien. By default, the image that has the latex equation will be embedded in the document slightly too high (as shown in the comparison below). That is to say that the baseline of the equation doesn’t match the baseline of the rest of the text.
Details of how you can solve this within Pages.app after the jump.
First select the image and switch to the “Wrap” pane in the inspector, by default the “Object placement” will be set to “Moves with text” and no object wrapping will be set. This needs to be changed to “Fixed on page” and the object wrapping should be set to centred (refer to the screenshot). Furthermore, the “Extra space” parameter should be reduced to either 0pt or maybe 1pt depending on your preference for how well spaced the equation should be.
The Wrap inspector in Pages.app
Hopefully this will help others who have noticed this issue and help you improve the look of your documents! Stay tuned for more useful tips and fixes in the future…
11 Responses to “LaTeXiT and Pages; fixing misaligned equations”
By James HC on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the tip! I’m having a little trouble with it, though, in Pages 08. (No Pages 06 to try.)
When I choose those options, it’s impossible to get the PDF from LaTeXiT lined up correctly with the text on either side. I can click and drag it around, but whenever I seem to get it where I want, the surrounding text readjusts in unpredictable ways; in particular I can’t seem to follow the image directly with a comma, as you do the images above.
How do you arrange the equation correctly?
By James on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
Hi there,
Thanks for the comment. The solution is simple I think…I am guessing that you are typing in your equations in the actual LaTeXiT application and then dragging the pdf over into pages? This is what is causing the problem if so.
The better way to use inline equations is the use the built in “service” that LaTeXiT offers. Please see our original post for details on this, I will summerise below for you however:
http://techpaedia.com/apple/2006/02/13/latexit-pages/
All you need to do is type the LaTeX equation (without the dollar signs) directly into the body of your text, then select the equation and press the command key and the period (or full-stop) key at the same time. This will invoke a system-wide service whereby LaTeXiT will typeset the equation for you. The beauty of this is that the equations text size and colour are inherited from the pages document. While testing this for you I have noticed that Pages ‘08 will actually align the equation correctly now, so the baseline is perfect. So it’s now even easier to use LaTeX equations in your pages documents!
If you are curious about the services I mentioned then click on the apple menu and the top left and go down to services. You will notice there are many services registered from different applications, including LaTeXiT!
By James HC on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
That’s great! It works perfectly now. Thank you, James.
By Joerg on Nov 5, 2007 | Reply
Is it also possible to integrate the mhchem package into LaTeXiT for typsetting chemical formulars?
Brgds
By James on Nov 8, 2007 | Reply
LaTeXiT allows you to include any package you want, so if you can do something in your normal LaTeX editor (i.e., TeX Shop or iTeXMac) then you can do it in LaTeXiT!
Just go to the preferences and then go to the premable tab and add the appropriate \usepackage entries and then you should be able to typeset your chemical formulae!
Let us know if you have any trouble with this.
By Jon on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
I am having trouble using LaTexIt services from inside Keynote (or Pages for that matter). Do you have any information on this? I can drag equations from the LaTexIt editor directly in However, I’d like to do it using services.
Thanks.
By Jon on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
Also forgot to mention in my last message I am running Leopard and running Keynote 08.
By Anders on Apr 12, 2008 | Reply
I can get the latexit service to work fine from pages. However, the “revert equations back to latex code” does not work. It works in textedit, but not in pages. Same, if I copy an equation from LatexIt to pages, it forgets the original latex code. But in Keynote it works as expected, when I copy back from Keynote to latexit, it show the latex code. Any ideas?
By Jan Foniok on May 21, 2008 | Reply
I would also like to use LaTeXIt + services + Pages on Leopard. But I have troubles with it:
- with LatexIt version 1.14.4 I can’t use services in Leopard
- version 1.15.0 should be able to use Services, but does not LaTeX - there may be some trouble with paths or whatever, nothing I have been able to fix
Any hints about this?