I put a formula in my last post and was surprised to realise that some people aren't sure how to add formulas to WordPress posts.
Formulas are a great way to present relationships and to explore numbers. It's amazing how often numbers occur in Internet Marketing, everything from measuring traffic, to money, to word counts, well the list goes on. So, being able to use formulas is highly useful as a quick way of expressing things.
So, here's my quick and dirty solution for doing so.
You need two completely free programs:
- OpenOffice
- The GIMP
You can use commercial alternatives if you want, such as Microsoft Office and Photoshop, but I like to stick with free software where I can.
In Open Office, choose Insert -> Object -> Formula
That brings up the formula option at the bottom of the screen.
Type the formula in there and it will appear in the document.
Now comes the clever bit, turning it into an image so that you can upload it to your blog.
Push the PrtSc key (near the top of your keyboard) to grab a copy of the current screen.
Open GIMP and choose Edit -> Paste, to get the screen into GIMP. Now use the Crop tool to highlight around the formula and choose Image -> Crop to Selection.
Hopefully, the screen will then just display the image you want.
Save it as a JPEG, upload it to your WordPress blog and you're done.
A formula, embedded within your post, with all the fancy mathematic notation you could need!
Want to add some extra hints about OpenOffice, GIMP, or using formulas? Go ahead and add your comments below.