LaTeX is an excellent package that allows clean creation of equations that look a mess using standard ^ – + = * etc. To get started download LaTeX for your operating system here. It is a fairly large one time install around 750MB.
I always used Anki with LaTeX. Other SRS may have LaTeX support, though everything written here is assuming the use of Anki.
Using LaTeX will be slow going at first. It’s okay. The benefits will work themselves out quickly. To get started with code I recommend going to this excellent online LaTeX editor. The top of the window has cool hot buttons to insert code to be filled with whatever numbers/letters you want. The bottom part is automatically updated. Play around with it. Really! This is a great way to learn what code performs what function. When the image at the bottom matches what you want, just copy and paste the code into Anki and surround it by [$][/$] or highlight and hit the LaTeX equation button.
Example of what LaTeX code looks like in the Anki window:
And when the card is viewed:
Note that I put the […] in myself using bolded blue text. I am still figuring out how to use cloze deletion with LaTeX properly. This is just a small extra thing to do. If someone knows how to do it please add in the comments.
Sometimes the equations can require two sets of LaTeX [$][/$], especially when handling molecules. Just play around with the online equation editor for awhile and it will work itself out. It took me around two weeks before I was putting code in myself comfortably. It’s alright.
Edit: Thank you to Jon for posting in the comments about how to make the equation look even better!
Just keep playing around and it will all come together. It is possible to drag and drop images from the online equation editor, though I recommend against it. It is important to learn how to use the code. This will become useful if it is necessary to edit or move things around in the equations – prevents retyping the whole thing. It is possible to use ChemSketch for this, though for the same reasons I recommend sticking to LaTeX code. I had to go back a lot and make little changes and move things around to make more sense.
This will make General Chemistry molecules/equations/etc. reasonable in SRS.
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The ASCII art in the middle is ugly. If I remember my chemistry symbols, you want
2NH_{3}\leftrightharpoons N_{2}+3H_{2}(or even2NH_3\leftrightharpoons N_2+3H_2, since you don’t have any multiple-character subscripts). Other candidates include \leftrightarrow, \leftrightarrows, or \Leftrightarrow.I recommend the Latex Mathematical Symbols reference for when you’re looking for the right symbol for the job.
Jon, thank you for clearing this up! The equations do look better using the LaTeX harpoons. Anki had trouble accepting the \leftrightharpoon, though took the \rightleftharpoon just fine. Would have used this all the time if I had known earlier!
[...] and it looked awful and I spent too long decoding it. For information on using LaTeX for Gen Chem click here. To use ChemSketch just grab the free download here. The program is quite easy to use, especially [...]
[...] Barron’s SAT Math Workbook provides great example problems and explanations. The book covers almost all of the math found in the DAT. I put some of the examples into SRS with great success using LaTeX. [...]
Doing Cloze Deletion in anki is really easy: just select the text that you want and press F9.
Thank you for the article!
really helpful thanks :3
You can use http://detexify.kirelabs.org if you are looking for a symbol. Simply draw the symbol you are looking for in the empty space and it will present you with commands that match your drawing. That site has been very useful.
That is such a cool site! Thank you for pointing it out.
In my experience, the number of actual LaTeX commands used when making General Chemistry cards is pretty minimal. I do recommend learning them (maybe through Anki?) After some time I became pretty fast at just typing it in myself.