Alignment within a single equation

Question

Hi, so I'm have a really frustrating issue where I can't seem to get an equation to align WITHIN an equation. I know that if I press shift + enter and ask it to align on a character that it will line up if I have multiple equations, but the issue I'm having is within a "stacked" equation with a brace on the left. I've attached a screenshot of what the resultant equation looks like currently. As you can see it's centering the top equation rather than left-aligning it. Try as I might, I cannot seem to get them to be left aligned. I've tried inserting a line break within the brace, but that doesn't seem to be working either. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Personally, I find the way that the equation editor works exasperating. I hope Daniel (who responded to the original question) "gets" it better than I do.

Reading UTN28-PlainTextMath-v3.pdf can help, but one of the problems with that is that some of the stuff in there is not supported in Word.

But...

I could not successfully apply the alignment to both "=" characters in D Anderson AO's example using the right click method. So instead I used the dropdown for the whole equation to switch to Linear mode,  

 - located the k before the first "="

 - clicked immediately after that k

 - typed a space character

 - typed an & character

then repeated that for the "k" before the second "=".

Then switched back to Professional mode.

That seemed to insert the two alignment points and did the left alignment of the two equations.

But let us know if that still doesn't work for you - in that case, if you can post an example of what you have on dropbox or some such, it will probably help.

Answer 2

Resurrecting a thread just to point out that this is a problem as Anderson indicates and I don't find that the above solution handles it.

Answer 3

Thanks Joe, but as I tried to point out in my original message, that solution only works for me when I have multiple equations. The equation I pasted in the original message is a single equation using the "cases and stacks" option with the bracket structure. I need the brace on the side and can't seem to get it left aligned with the brace. I can only do it as two separate equations. I've attached an additional screenshot here, if that helps.

Answer 4

Refer the link which talks about a similar issue and check if it helps.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macword/in-equations-align-at-character-doesnt-work/44c84ed7-8315-4bbd-ad3b-a445fe499d80?msgId=67615568-c2dc-4563-a1b3-661b4fcb02a8