Benjamin Levicek Students very often choose MacBooks, iPads or iPhones as their work tools or school supplies. On the one hand, it does so thanks to sophisticated office applications from the iWork package, which Apple offers natively, but also thanks to many easy-to-use third-party applications. However, it is true that some students encounter the problem of not knowing how to write mathematical and other special characters. The Apple Pencil can solve this problem quite conveniently, but not everyone owns an Apple Pencil - moreover, you can only use it with an iPad. So today we will show you how to enter mathematical characters as quickly as possible directly from the keyboard, both on an iPhone or iPad, and on a Mac.
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First, you need to find the characters somewhere. Some of them are located directly in the software keyboard on the iPhone or iPad, or you can find them in the symbols of the given application on the Mac. However, all characters are definitely not here, so you need to find their correct notation, copy it, and then paste it. There are many mathematical tools both in the App Store and on the Internet - I personally use them Useful Web Tool. If you do not need to write characters regularly, but only occasionally, then this simple Internet tool will certainly serve you well. The characters from this tool are then sufficient copy to the necessary document, or you can with the button Save To File create a file with written characters.
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Offline procedure
However, you don't always have an internet connection available, in which case neither the aforementioned nor any other online tool will help you. However, if you still want to write down mathematical characters, there is a solution that takes quite a lot of time to set up, but the result is definitely worth it. First of all, it will be necessary for you to they opened tool from the link above or another you prefer. Then select the required character a copy it. Now, the process differs depending on whether you're working on an iPhone or iPad, or on a Mac.
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iPhone and iPad
Go to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Text Replacement and select next Add. To the box Phrase insert math symbol, into the field Abbreviation write the combination of characters that invokes the given mathematical symbol. For example, if you type in the Abbreviation field §+2 and save, then the symbol ² you write just by writing §+2. There will therefore be an "automatic transformation", i.e. a replacement of the text.
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Mac
For settings on your Mac, click on the top left Apple icon -> System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Text and at the bottom left click on Add. To the field Written text insert mathematical expression, into the field Replace with text pack combination of characters you want to use for that symbol. For example, if you type in the Abbreviation field §+2 and save, then the symbol ² you write just by writing §+2. There will therefore be an "automatic transformation", i.e. a replacement of the text.
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The above offline procedure has the advantage that you can then use the set mathematical characters in almost all applications. Active text replacements you save on your iPhone or iPad automatically sync with your Mac (and vice versa), so you don't have to create individual shortcuts for each device. In addition, the text replacement also works when you connect an external hardware keyboard to the iPhone or iPad, so you don't have to worry that math should be a problem for you on the iPad, for example. It is true that the setup takes some time, especially if you use many different mathematical symbols. However, the result will definitely make your job easier. Of course, it is clear that you do not need to use shortcuts only for mathematical characters, but also for emoji or characters of foreign alphabets, if you do not want to switch the keyboard to the necessary language.
