Math in Office

RichEdit Hyperlinks

October 29, 2022 Oct 29, 2022 10/29/22

Murray Sargent

RichEdit has two kinds of hyperlinks: automatic hyperlinks (autoURLs) and friendly-name hyperlinks. As its name suggests, the autoURL is automatically recognized by RichEdit as a hyperlink and is displayed as a URL. A friendly name hyperlink has a name, which is displayed, and a hidden instruction part that contains the URL. This post ...

Setting and Getting Text in Various Formats

September 29, 2022 Sep 29, 2022 09/29/22

Murray Sargent

You can get and set text from/into RichEdit in a variety of formats including RTF, HTML, MathML, OMML, UnicodeMath, Nemeth Braille, and speech. This post documents RichEdit options for a general way to access text using ITextRange2::SetText2(options, bstr) and ITextRange2::GetText2(options, pbstr). As such, this post is for programmers. All ...

Computers I have known

August 29, 2022 Aug 29, 2022 08/29/22

Murray Sargent

A friend recommended that since I got into computers a long time ago, I should post about how computers have changed over the years. Well, here goes a trip down memory lane! Analog and button pushing The first computer I ever used was an Electronics Associates analog computer at the Perkin Elmer Corporation where I worked as an intern in the...

Microsoft 365 Modern Comments

July 26, 2022 Jul 26, 2022 07/26/22

Murray Sargent

The new Modern Comments facility aims to give a similar commenting experience on the web and in native apps. On the desktop in Windows and the Mac, the editor component is RichEdit. The facility is a work in progress, and it is getting very nice. This post gives some background on incorporating RichEdit into the Microsoft 365 commenting ...

RichEdit Autoformatting

June 29, 2022 Jun 29, 2022 06/29/22

Murray Sargent

RichEdit and Word have had the most elaborate autoformatting ever since Office 2007, namely math formula auto-buildup. A UnicodeMath expression builds up into OfficeMath as soon as it is unambiguous. Word and other programs have also had less ambitious autoformatting since late in the last century. Such functionality includes auto conversion ...

Rounded Rectangles and Ellipses

May 22, 2022 May 22, 2022 05/22/22

Murray Sargent

In Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and RichEdit, you can enclose text in a rectangle by putting the text into a math “boxed formula” object. To try this out, type alt+= to enter a math zone and then \rect(a+b)<space>. This displays as as The “\rect(a+b)” is the UnicodeMath representation of this boxed formula. In MathML, the boxed ...

OfficeMath

April 28, 2022 Apr 28, 2022 04/28/22

Murray Sargent

Microsoft Word 2007 and RichEdit 6.0 introduced the native Office math facility. PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote followed suit in 2010, and Mac Word followed in 2011. But ironically the native math facility didn’t have a recognizable name. “Microsoft Equation Editor” (MEE) seemed natural, but that's the name of the Design Science math ...

Two Phonetic Scripts: Vietnamese and Korean

March 2, 2022 Mar 2, 2022 03/2/22

Murray Sargent

A few years ago, I visited two very interesting countries, Vietnam and South Korea. Being actively involved in writing software (mostly RichEdit) for editing the world’s scripts, I was naturally fascinated to see Vietnamese and Korean text displayed in profusion. The Vietnamese and Korean scripts were designed with a common purpose in mind: ...

Windows 11 Notepad

February 22, 2022 Feb 22, 2022 02/22/22

Murray Sargent

The new Windows 11 Notepad uses RichEdit and runs on up-to-date Windows 11 installations. In addition to a Windows 11 look with rounded corners and a dark-theme option, the new Notepad includes several standard RichEdit editing enhancements, such as Alt+x for entering Unicode characters, Ctrl+} for toggling between matching brackets/...

Function to get Unicode Fractions

January 22, 2022 Jan 22, 2022 01/22/22

Murray Sargent

Do you know that Unicode includes the fraction characters ↉ ½ ⅓ ¼ ⅕ ⅙ ⅐ ⅛ ⅑ ⅒ ⅔ ⅖ ¾ ⅗ ⅜ ⅘ ⅚ ⅞? Well thanks to existing character standards, ½ ⅓ ¼ ⅕ ⅙ ⅛ ⅔ ⅖ ¾ ⅗ ⅜ ⅘ ⅚ ⅞ were added in Unicode 1.1 in 1993, and ↉ ⅐ ⅑ ⅒ were added in Unicode 5.2 in 2009. Programs like Microsoft Word ...