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I'm confused about text formatting, I see almost everywhere the \text command, which I believe is part of the amsmath package?

If I'm doing mostly writing with just a bit of math here and there, is using the \text command preferred or is there another method more native to latex without the amsmath package for formatting text?

Sigur
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    Could you give an example? If you just mean "a document containing a lot of prose with only a few simple equations", then you don't have to worry about \text. (The \text macro is mostly for when you want to do things such as insert a little bit of prose into some mathematics.) – Niel de Beaudrap Apr 19 '13 at 15:49
  • Your question isn't so clear what do you mean by "formatting text" \text is for formatting text in math mode (you could use \mbox instead if you don't need it to get smaller in subscripts) but do you need text in math at all? – David Carlisle Apr 19 '13 at 15:49
  • I am doing mostly prose, a couple of equations but very little. I was only aware of the \text command for changing text to italic, bold, small caps, etc. This command however I am starting to realize is part of the math package and I'm wondering if there is a better command for altering text this way that isn't specific for mathematical text. –  Apr 19 '13 at 15:52
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    Welcome to TeX.SX. – Claudio Fiandrino Apr 19 '13 at 16:03

1 Answers1

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To write a simple document without very much math, you don't have to do anything special; and you certainly don't need the \text macro.

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}

%% Uncomment the following line to use an AMSmath equation
%\usepackage{amsmath}

\title{A simple document consisting mostly of text}
\author{Niel de Beaudrap}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section{A section title}

The following is a simple displayed un-numbered equation.
\[
  E = mc^2
\]
%% Uncomment the following as desired.
% In many cases, it's useful to use an equation environment
% from the AMSmath package. The following is a simple example
% which gives the displayed equation a number:
%\begin{equation}
%  \mathbf{F} := \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} \mathbf{p}
%\end{equation}
You can write as much prose as you want outside of the math environments
you use (indeed, you don't have to use \emph{any} math environments if
you don't want to).

\end{document}

Give that a try. You might want to investigate some simple introductory references for LaTeX, if you're starting from scratch.

Community
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Niel de Beaudrap
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