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How to strike through the equation to cancel or reduce fractions

Anonymous
2015-08-30T17:19:06+00:00

How can I cancel out the terms in Office Word equation editor as shown below:

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2015-09-01T03:19:21+00:00

    Word 2013's equation editor does support keyboard shortcuts such as \infty. However, it does not support the \cancel operator, and I don't see any way for a user to add it.

    The documentation for the shortcuts in the Unicode technical note UTN28 is in Appendix B of Unicode Nearly Plain Text Encoding of Mathematics. The \cancel operator doesn't appear there, so I think it's unique to Latex.

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2015-08-30T20:07:11+00:00

    Word does not have a tool like that built into the equation editor. Also, I suspect that if there was such a tool, it wouldn't allow you to specify different colors as in your sample.

    You can use the drawing tools in the Insert > Shape gallery. It's possible to draw lines on top of the equation. You then have control of the colors, thicknesses, and lengths of the lines.

    Unfortunately, the anchor point for the lines (the place where your cursor is when you start drawing) can't be in the same paragraph with a centered display equation -- whenever there is anything else in the same paragraph, Word insists on changing the equation to "in-line", making the numbers in the fractions smaller.

    My favored solution is to make a 3-column x 1-row table and enter the equation in the middle cell. Then you can anchor the lines in either the left cell or the right cell without affecting the location of the equation. When you turn off the table's borders, it becomes invisible and displays only the contents. (You could just press Enter after the equation and anchor the lines in the next paragraph, but that's fragile; if the equation and its following paragraph fall on different pages, the lines will stay with the paragraph instead of the equation.)

    Here's what it looks like in Word:

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-31T17:42:21+00:00

    I do a lot equation editing. My normal usage is:

    1. Hit Alt+=. This puts equation editor in Word
    2. Then I use Latex to insert equations without leaving keyboard. Say "\infty" for infinity sign or some Word equation editor specific options like putting '/' creates fraction '\sum_x^y' creates summation x to y. 

    In latex this can be done with \cancel{y+x} which puts y+x and then diagonally strike-through it.

    I want to do that without leaving keyboard, fast and quick. The solution should required minimal keystrokes. Seems that there isnt such way to do in Word. Is there?

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