Frequently asked questions - Math

TDF LibreOffice Document Liberation Project Community Blogs Weblate Nextcloud Redmine Ask LibreOffice Donate

• Wiki Home
• Development
• Design
• QA
• Events
• Documentation
• Website
• Localization
• Accessibility
• Marketing
• Diversity
• Wiki Help

• Documentation Home
• Official Publications
• Other Resources
• FAQ
• HowTo
• Macros
• Docs Development

• FAQ Home
• General
• Writer
• Calc
• Impress
• Draw
• Math
• Base

When I enter one of the symbols #, & , |, ", %, ^ or _ I get an error message or an undesired result. How can I use these symbols?

These symbols have special meanings in Math:

• The # symbol is used with stack and matrix.
• The symbols & and | are used to indicate logical and and logical or, respectively.
• The symbol " is used to indicate strings of characters.
• The symbol % is used to indicate a predefined symbol name or a personal symbol as explained in this FAQ.
• The symbols ^ and _ are used to indicate superscripts and subscripts, respectively.

To use one of these symbols in a formula, put it in quotation marks. For example: "#". There is one exception: double quotes can not put itself between quotes. To be displayed, you need to insert an escape character \ before:

"\""

There are two uses of the | symbol for which Math has specific markup:

• a divides b will display a | b
• abs a will display |a|

Another solution would be to add an additional personal symbol as explained in this FAQ.