How do I get the equivalent of the $\LaTeX$ \tag{} in Mathematica?

Question

How do I get the equivalent of the $\LaTeX$ \tag{} in Mathematica?

$a+b=x \tag{1}$

I'm not necessarily asking how to use the $\LaTeX$ \tag{} itself in Mathematica, I'm just looking for some feature that will allow me to mark an equation like that.

Answer 1

As others have pointed out, automatic numbering is nicely taken care of through the built-in DisplayFormulaNumbered style. Custom numbering (both a separate counter and counting sequence) can be introduced into stylesheets, for example, I have made a Theorem style before.

However, for a one off equation numbers / labels, like the $\LaTeX$ \tag option, you just want to manually set the CellFrameLabels option. This can be done using the option inspector or by using CellPrint or Show Expression. For example

CellPrint[Cell[BoxData[
   FormBox[RowBox[{"a", "+", "b", "=", "c"}], TraditionalForm]], 
  "DisplayFormula", CellFrameLabels -> {{None, "(1a)"}, {None, None}}]]

produces

selecting the cell and looking at the option inspector shows you how you could edit this option with a GUI:

---

However, referring to that equation using the standard CellTags and Automatic Numbering / CounterBox combination seems to be a bit tricky... There might be a nice way of doing it, but nothing immediately comes to mind.

Answer 2

I do not think what you are asking for is possible. But you can do what you want by numbering an equation in Mathematica like this

do not know if this will meet your needs.

Using Mathematica like Latex is not really practical or useful. I found it is better to just use Latex for typesetting, and use Mathematica for doing the computation and analysis.