u/eemokee — reddlx

I made a speed-typing game for math, and I type it in my own shorthand to beat the clock (it outputs LaTeX)

I've been building a faster way to type math: a tolerant shorthand that resolves into LaTeX as you go. To stress-test it, I turned it into a game. An equation appears, you race to reproduce it.

https://i.redd.it/pat2cmc4h0bh1.gif

What you see me typing is the shorthand, not raw LaTeX. It commits to LaTeX under the hood, so the output is the real thing and the input takes fewer keystrokes.

My own times: integrals land around 6-7 seconds, limits a bit more once the \to, the bounds and a \frac stack up (7-8s). That's about handwriting speed, except the output compiles.

Here's where I need you. If you're fluent in raw LaTeX, how long does an integral or a limit take you from memory? That's the comparison I can't run myself, and it's the one that tells me whether this shorthand is worth anything.

It comes from MathCursor (a VS Code plugin); the game runs in the browser, so you can try it without installing anything: https://game.mathcursor.com

Yes, this overlaps with snippet setups (UltiSnips and friends). The difference I'm chasing is tolerance and disambiguation instead of fixed expansions, so fast, slightly-off typing still resolves to the structure I meant. Curious whether that's worthwhile, or whether good snippets already cover it. Roast welcome.

reddit.com

u/eemokee — 3 days ago

▲ 0 r/MicrosoftWord

Does anyone else wish Word could just understand the math you're typing? (I tried to build that)

Native equation input in Word means a lot of mouse work: opening the Equation tab, clicking through symbols, losing your rhythm. The real friction for me wasn't drawing the symbols, it was that Word never grasps what I'm trying to write while I write it.

So I built a small free tool, MathCursor, around that idea. You type in simple keyboard notation and it captures your math intent in real time, resolving the structure (fractions, exponents, etc.) as you go, then renders a real Word equation inline. Ghost text shows you what it understood before you validate.

https://i.redd.it/dsivgovzwfah1.gif

harder

The genuinely hard part is that interpretation step: turning fast, slightly ambiguous typing into the structure you actually meant. Rendering OMath afterwards is the trivial part.

Upfront: I'm the author, not selling anything (it's free to use). Mostly I'm curious whether others here hit the same friction, and whether this way of working matches how you think.

if you want to try https://mathcursor.com/

reddit.com

u/eemokee — 6 days ago

▲ 88 r/matheducation

How much prep time do you lose fighting the Word equation editor?

[EDIT]: this got more attention than I expected, and a lot of you rightly pointed out that Word's linear input and Math AutoCorrect go further than my post implied. They do, I learned a few things in here. Quick clarification on what this is, since "Word equation editor bad" was the wrong framing.

The Word plugin is just the first surface. Underneath it's an input engine, and the work has mostly gone into the cognitive side: keeping the writing at the speed you're thinking, so you don't break your train of thought to wrestle with syntax. In practice that comes down to tolerating ambiguity. Most tools make you be unambiguous up front, so you type (1+x)/(x+1). I let you type 1+x/x+1 loosely and pick the reading you meant, using your spacing as a hint. Output is plain OMath, the same object Word's own editor makes, so no lock-in.

If you'd rather test that than take my word for it, there's a bare web version, nothing to install: https://mathcursor.pages.dev/demo/ . Type 1+x/x+1 and watch. It's not a one-trick demo either: it already covers most of a secondary curriculum, fractions, powers, sums, integrals and limits, vectors, matrices, sets and logic, intervals, complex numbers, Greek letters, in both French and English, with 400+ regression tests behind it.

On who it's for: if you're already fluent in LaTeX or the Word editor, this isn't really for you, and I won't pretend otherwise. You've climbed that curve. It's for the people who never will, the kid, the occasional user, the one who'll never open Math AutoCorrect. If you teach them, that's the angle. Thanks for the pushback, it sharpened the whole thing.

Original Post:

I'm teach-adjacent — I build tools, and I'm the parent of a middle-schooler — and I kept watching the same thing happen: the moment a worksheet or a test has more than a couple of equations, Word turns into a clicking marathon. The equation editor is slow enough to break your train of thought mid-problem.

What gets me is the contrast. When I write code, I type a few letters and it autocompletes. When I write math, I'm three menus deep just to find the ℝ symbol.

So over a couple of weekends I hacked together a different approach: you type math the way you'd say it or scribble it, and it becomes a real, native, editable Word equation in real time. No image — it stays a real, searchable, accessible equation.

A handful of teachers have been poking at it and breaking it in useful ways, which is why I'm here. I built the first version around how I phrase math (I'm French), and I'm trying to figure out if "type it like you'd say it" survives translation. So for the English-speaking teachers:

Does typing lim x 0, 1/2, x^(2) match how you'd naturally write it, or does your notation diverge from what's in the GIF?
Where would US/UK conventions break this — intervals, vectors, decimals, function names?
What's your current workflow, and is the slowness bad enough that a faster input would actually change anything for you?

Genuinely curious how others handle this — it feels like a solved problem everywhere except math.

u/eemokee — 23 days ago