Moving display mode to the left

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Left align (to the page) displayed math

I have a document in which I want to use display mode, but want the expressions left-aligned instead of centered. So far, I've been able to do this with this code:

\begin{align*}
\[some display math\]
\end{align*}

This is a pain. Is there some setting I can use that will align all display math to the left? I've tried [fleqn], but this seems to only left align equations and equation blocks, instead of any general display math.

Answer 1

The [fleqn] class option will align the equations towards the left. The amount of indentation is controlled by the value of the length \mathindent. Setting this to zero results in the equations aligned at the left margin. Here is the otuput of an align* and a standard display math equation using \[ \]:

Notes:

• The showframe package was used just to display the margins.

Code:

\documentclass[fleqn]{article}
\usepackage{showframe}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
\setlength{\mathindent}{0.0pt}
\noindent
Here is the output of \verb|align|:
\begin{align}
x &= y &\
\sin x &\neq y +z
\end{align}
Here is the output of display math:
[
    \sin x \neq y +z
]
\end{document}