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.
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…