I've recently had occasion to use a formula editor in a word processor, and I found it frustrating. I've abandoned it for other reasons, but the details of the frustration are interesting.
When editing a major formula, no problem. It has its quirks, but within reason, and it's quite good.
The problem comes with small in-line things. If the main formula has xi and xj then I need to talk about them in the text, one, the other, their relationship — but switching into the formula editor three times in a sentence is no way to write!
I wonder if there's a good solution?
(For comparison, in LaTeX, one would write xi as $x_i$ — perhaps not ideal, but one gets to keep one's fingers on the keyboard and with practice it gets automatic. If it's a more complicated expression used often, one can define a short-cut, like \xi. With a formula editor, it will always be a break in the flow.)
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