eqnarray or equation for single-line equations?

Question

Normally I would use \begin{equation}, of course. But I got a huge file (more than two hundred pages) where many equations are formatted like this:

\begin{eqnarray}
  a = b + 1 % no & here!
\end{eqnarray}

AFAICT the visual difference is minimal. Still, should I convert all this to \begin{equation}?

(I suspect that the bigger problem might be the missing & characters around the =. If I add them, I get exactly the same output as with \[...\], which should be the right thing.)

I use the svmono document class, if that is important.

Please see: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/196/eqnarray-vs-align — Marco Daniel, Jul 28 '12 at 08:42
@MarcoDaniel Thanks, but that question is about a list of related equations, which I don't have here. — Reinstate Monica, Jul 28 '12 at 08:43
Use equation for single line equations (or \[...\] for unnumbered ones) and never ever use eqnarray. — egreg, Jul 28 '12 at 08:46
@egreg: It seems to me your comment answers this question. Maybe you should put it as an answer!?! — bodo, Aug 19 '12 at 18:20
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/321/align-vs-equation — cmhughes, Sep 02 '12 at 20:43

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:34

4

Use equation for single line equations (or \[...\] for unnumbered ones) and never ever use eqnarray. See eqnarray vs align for more information.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:34

Community

1

answered Sep 01 '12 at 21:38

egreg

1,121,712

This suggests that I convert all equations. However, the link and the documents linked from it and the answers do not seem to give any information for my specific question: single line, no alignment (i.e. no &). No source says anything bad (or good) about that (unless I missed something). So while your answer certainly is good general advice, I am not sure how it applies here. – Reinstate Monica Sep 02 '12 at 20:41
@WolframH If you don't want to edit your document, fine. But you'll do yourself a favor using the right environment for each equation or group thereof. This doesn't include eqnarray. :) – egreg Sep 02 '12 at 20:48

eqnarray or equation for single-line equations?

1 Answers1