The Visioneers

Writing technical reports and papers for conference or journal publication can be a challenging task specially when it involves a lot of equations. This is also true for those who are doing their thesis and dissertation.  And sometimes centering an equation can be so frustrating. I myself, for one, have gone through this difficulty.

I’m using Microsoft Word 2003 with MathType 6.0.  What we want to achieve is to center the equation within the margin of our document and align the equation numbers[ e.g., (1), (2), and (3)] to the right edge of the margin as shown below:

Now, here’s how we do it:

1.  Make sure the STYLES AND FORMATTING is clicked so the pane at the right is visible (see the arrows).

2.  Once visible, the STYLES AND FORMATTING can be edited by clicking the MODIFY menu item in the drop-down menu:

3. A dialog box appears, click Format -> Tabs, make sure that you are editing the MTDisplayEquation style. See the example below.

4. Clicking the TABS menu item pops up another dialog box.  Assuming you are using A4-size paper with a left and right margin of 1.25″, you should edit the TAB STOP POSITION as shown, 0″ (left alignment),  3″ (center alignment) and 6 (right alignment).

5. Close the dialog boxes and try to insert an equation.  You should have the result as shown. Tab stops being pointed by arrows are now visible at the ruler area: