Mathematics/Mathematical glyphs

Binary Operators Relations

Basic binary symbols can be produced by typing the correspoding keyboard character. These include

 + - = < >

A general expressions can be input in the natural manner. For example $x+y$ gives

Notice that TeX took care of the spacing around +. Mathematicians use a lot of symbols that are not avialable on the keyboard.

TeX (and ConTeXt) provide macros to input them. For example $x \times y$ gives

The following is a partial list of frequently used binary operators and relations.

Commonly Used Binary Operators	Commonly used relation symbols	Set Relations
`\pm`	`\leq`	`\subset`
`\mp`	`\ll`	`\subseteq`
`\times`	`\geq`	`\supset`
`\div`	`\gg`	`\supseteq`
`\ast`	`\equiv`	`\cap`
`\star`	`\sim`	`\cup`
`\bullet`	`\simeq`	`\in`
`\circ`	`\approx`
`\cdot`	`\neq`

Sums, products, integrals

Sums with `\sum`

\setupbodyfont[14pt]
\framed[frame=off,align=normal]{%
 \m{\sum_{k = 0}^{j + n} a_k = e^{a + b - c}}  \blank[small]
\dm{\sum_{k = 0}^{j + n} a_k = e^{a + b - c}}}

Products with `\prod`

\setupbodyfont[14pt]
\framed[frame=off,align=normal]{%
 \m{\prod_{i=a}^{b} f(i)}  \blank[small]
\dm{\prod_{i=a}^{b} f(i)}}

Integrals with `\int`

\setupbodyfont[14pt]
\framed[frame=off,align=normal]{%
 \m{\int_a^b f(x) \dd x }  \blank[small]      
\dm{\int_a^b f(x) \dd x }  \blank[small]

\setupmathematics[differentiald=upright]
\dm{\int_a^b f(x) \dd x }  \blank[small]               
}

Greek Letters

To type the greek character α you can say $\alpha$ which gives

. If you have a utf enabled keyboard, you can also type the α directly and ConTeXt will correctly interpret it. For example,

\enableregime[utf]

Here is some Greek math $α^2 + β^2 = γ^2$

Here is a complete list of greek letters

lowercase greek letters	variation	uppercase greek letters
`\alpha`
`\beta`
`\gamma`		`\Gamma`
`\delta`		`\Delta`
`\epsilon`	`\varepsilon`
`\zeta`
`\eta`
`\theta`	`\vartheta`	`\Theta`
`\iota`
`\kappa`
`\lambda`		`\Lambda`
`\mu`
`\nu`
`\xi`		`\Xi`
`\omicron`
`\pi`	`\varpi`	`\Pi`
`\rho`	`\varrho`
`\sigma`	`\varsigma`	`\Sigma`
`\tau`
`\upsilon`		`\Upsilon`
`\phi`		`\Phi`
`\chi`
`\psi`		`\Psi`
`\omega`		`\Omega`

Subscript and superscript

TeX uses ^ and _ to denote superscripts and subscripts. It is perhaps easiest to explain this by means of some examples.

is written as $x_{10}^{15}$ or $x^{15}_{10}$ . The order in which _ and ^ are given does not matter. One can also type complicated expressions like

as $a_{b_{c_{d_{e}}}}$ .

To align superscripts and subscripts one after the other (not above/below each other), you can either add empty sub- and superscripts or use the command \noscript between indices. (See Section 2.7 in the Mathematics in ConTeXt manual (https://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/mathincontext-screen.pdf).) $T^a_{}_b^{}^c = T^a \noscript _b \noscript^c$ gives:

List of All Math macros

With \usemodule[fnt-25], \showmathfontcharacters produces a lengthy annotated catalogue. Here is the first page:

In ConTeXt MkII, you can see the list of all math macros by \showmathcharacters.

Spacing

TeX handles math spacing by breaking a formula into parts, and assigning each of those parts a role such as 'Ord' (a variable or number) or 'Rel' (equality, larger than, et cetera). For each combination of roles, it then looks up the spacing appropriate between them in a table. These are the roles:

Ord	e.g. 4 or a or x²
Op	Unary operators such as sin or ln.
Bin	Binary operators such as '+'
Rel	Relationships such as '=' or '>' or '\implies'
Open	open brackets of any kind
Close	closing brackets of any kind
Punct	Punctuation: digit separators like '.' or ','.
Inner	Fractions are inner. What else is inner?

To set up e.g. the spacing between ordinal items, do as follows (since dec 2012):

 \startsetups math:morespacing
     \ordordspacing\textstyle 1mu plus .5mu minus .25mu\relax
 \stopsetups

 \setupmathematics
   [setups=math:morespacing]

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