Curio and equations

Occasionally we receive a question regarding how to put mathematical equations into Curio. We have a large number of students, professors, and scientists using Curio so this is something that tends to come up fairly frequently.

While Curio doesn't include a built-in equation editor, I did stumble across a nifty method using a program that is included with Mac OS X.

If you look in /Applications/Utilities you'll find an application called Grapher. Launch it and you'll find a shockingly sophisticated 2D and 3D equation editor and graphing program.

To enter equations the first tip is to use the Equation Palette (via the Window menu) - I couldn't get the little drop down in the equation bar to work reliably for me. There's also a good amount of information available via the Help menu.

Once you have entered your equation you can select the equation itself and copy it to the clipboard where it is stored as a PDF image.

Paste that PDF image into Curio and you have a perfectly rendered equation which can be scaled to any size while maintaining full legibility.

You can also graph your equation in Grapher, of course, and then copy that as PDF and place that into your Curio idea space, as well.

Enjoy Grapher and if I find any more complete documentation for it (it used to be called Curvus Pro and was purchased by Apple), I'll certainly post more information.