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Toggle TeX always uses Times New Roman font

TechNote 168

Applicability

The information on this page applies to:

MathType 6.5 and later for Windows

MathType 6.7 and later for Mac

All supported versions of Word for Windows and Mac

Issue

You're using Palatino Linotype font in Word. For small equations, you prefer to type the equations in LaTeX and use MathType Toggle TeX command to convert them into MathType equations. Every equation you create using this method is formatted in Times New Roman font, 12pt, even though you are not using that font in your document, your Normal style in Word does not use that font, and MathType "new equation" preferences do not use that font.

Reason

There are two contributing reasons for this:

  1. MathType does not have a way to know what font you're using for the text of your document.

  2. Toggle TeX uses neither Word's Normal style, nor MathType "new equation" preferences, nor a preference file attached to your Word document (if you have one).

Solution

Toggle TeX uses fonts and sizes stored in a file on your computer and always formats its equations using styles from this file. To change the default styles for Toggle TeX, follow these steps (steps & screenshots are for Windows; differences noted for Mac):

  1. In File Explorer (Mac: Finder), open the Office Support folder:

    1. 64-bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\MathType\Office Support

    2. 32-bit Windows: C:\Program Files\MathType\Office Support

    3. Mac: Applications > MathType > Office Support

  2. Open the file named BlankEqn.doc. Despite the appearance of this file, when you open it, it is not empty. It contains a single blank equation and no text. When you open the file, the insertion point (cursor) should be flashing at the beginning of the document. Double-click immediately to the right of the flashing cursor, and the blank equation should open in MathType. What you'll see will look just like you have opened MathType to create a new equation.

    tsn168-blank-equation.png
  3. Don't type anything in the equation editing space. In the Style menu, click Define. Set your fonts to be whatever you want them to be — presumably whatever you're using for the text of your Word document (in this example, Palatino Linotype). If you're going to set the size as well, do so by changing the Full size in Size > Define to whatever you'd like it to be — again, presumably to match the size of the text you're using in Word.

  4. Close MathType by clicking the X in the upper right corner (Mac: click the red "stoplight" in the upper left corner). MathType will warn you that you are saving an empty equation, but this is exactly what you want to do. Please do not delete it.

    tsn168-empty-equation-warning.png
  5. Save and close the document. If you're on a Mac, the file is read-only. Save it with a different name, such as BlankEqn1.doc. The Office Support folder should still be open in Finder from step 1 above. If it's not, open it again. Delete the original BlankEqn.doc file (or if you want, rename it BlankEqn.doc.bak, or something other than its original name). Now rename your new blank equation document to BlankEqn.doc. If you know how to change this one to read-only and want to do so, you can do that, but it's unnecessary.

That's it! If you want, you can have several Word document files with an empty equation, each having different settings for fonts & sizes. Name them whatever you want, but MathType will always use the one named BlankEqn.doc for its Toggle TeX equations.

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We hope this has been helpful. As always, please let us know if you have questions about this or if you have additional techniques that work. We'd love to hear from you.