By default, Latex will print text within formulas in italics, omitting white spaces. Now if you need to add normal text into a formula or even write a formula using words, you can do this with the text-command inside the math-environment:
\usepackage{amsmath}
\text{...}
Example:
\text{velocity} = \frac{\text{distance}} {\text{unit of time}}
Btw. The “text-command” will also take care of the spaces, which would otherwise be ignored.
Note:
Spaces in the math-environment can be produced using:
\;for a thick space,\:for a medium space,\,for a thin space and\!for a negative thin space.
Intertext
Using the math-environment align to display a series of equations, whole lines of text can be added in between using the “intertext”-command without affecting the alignment of the equations:
\begin{align}
...
\intertext{...}
...
\end{align}
Example:
\begin{align}
F = f_1+f_2+f_3+...+f_n
\intertext{can be written as}
\sum_1^n{f_i}
\end{align}
Not exactly sure how powerful \text is, but in case it doesn’t work or doesn’t do what you want, try \mbox instead. It’s just a box that, within a math environment or not, uses the font of the surrounding text.
Thank you very much. This helped me in 2021, even though it was posted far back in 2008
It’s soooo ugly seeing variable names in formulas written without \text{} or \mbox{}… I think it’s one of the most common mistakes…
nice post!
Never knew intertext existed. Thanks!
To my clone when he comes to this site: \text requires including the amstext package. (Yes, comments are the monological part of blogging.)
Thanks a lot 🙂
Thank you so much. I needed that a lot
@erik thanks man, I made it here three years later.
Awesome! Thanks to your comment I finally fixed the post, adding the required package to the sample code. Thanks, Tom.
How can i add the symbols along with text in the same line…for eg..the summation of every items are (summation symbol).
Either write a paragraph and use inline math (
$...$) or text within the math environment (\textrm).\documentclass{article} \begin{document} The summation of every item is: $\sum$ $$ \textrm{The summation of every item is: } \sum$$ \end{document}Thanks Tom…