Get Formula

The three buttons at the top of the tab reach back to the sheet and bring the selected cell's formula into the editor, in the same three readings the Formula tab offers:

Get Formula: Ref Name Value

They are green to stand out from the editor's toolbar beneath them — the same green the copy buttons flash, because this is the other place something arrives from outside the editor.

• Ref — written with cell references, as the sheet writes them.
• Name — written with the names fxRender finds for each cell. See how names are found.
• Value — written with the values the formula actually computed with.

What arrives is exactly what the Formula tab would have drawn, expansion included — it is the same call behind both. From there it is yours to edit.

The editor

• The toolbar is the CodeCogs equation editor's own, and carries the full range of mathematical notation: fractions, roots, integrals, sums, matrices, Greek, accents, arrows, relations and the rest, grouped into panels that open as you need them.
• Undo, redo and clear sit above the toolbar rather than in it, because they act on the equation as a whole rather than adding to it.

Two views of the same equation

• The maths view shows the equation typeset, and is where you click to put the cursor. It is the equation as it will be drawn.
• The markup view shows the same equation as LaTeX, and can be typed into directly. The two stay in step: an edit in either appears in the other.
• The markup view is optional. The LaTeX switch at the foot of the panel hides it, leaving the typeset equation on its own — which is the right setting for anyone who would rather not see the markup at all.
• Beside it, Inline draws the equation the way it would sit in a line of text rather than on a line of its own: a large operator's limits move beside it instead of above and below, and the whole equation is set to align on a baseline. The preview follows the switch, and so does whatever you then insert, copy or save.

Putting it on the sheet

• Insert draws the equation onto the sheet at the current selection, at the point size chosen beside it (12pt, 14pt and so on), with or without a Box.
• Make Table lays the equation out as a table instead, which is the way to get a system of equations or a matrix onto the sheet as cells rather than as a picture.
• The four buttons down the right-hand edge of the preview copy the equation as a PNG, save it as an SVG, copy it as MathML (which Word turns into a real equation), or copy the LaTeX itself. Nothing here asks the equation service — every form is produced on your machine.
• Suggested offers a few equations to start from, for when the quickest way to what you want is something near it.