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I have a student typing up her thesis. She needs to type external tensor, $\boxtimes$. Is there anyway to get that symbol in Microsoft Word? She doesn't know how to use TeX.

J126
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  • I added the tag 'notation' because I couldn't think of a more appropriate tag. – J126 Apr 02 '13 at 15:19
  • Has she tried copying and pasting it from your question? Works for me on just about every editor i use (don't have Word specifically) – muzzlator Apr 02 '13 at 15:23
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    copy-paste the symbol from your post gives me this : ⊠ what about in word ? – Vincent Nivoliers Apr 02 '13 at 15:23
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    She should learn TeX. She's typing up a mathematical paper in Word? – noobProgrammer Apr 02 '13 at 15:26
  • Maybe you should try using TeX to Word converter. – Inceptio Apr 02 '13 at 15:28
  • @noobProgrammer In her defense, she is an undergraduate student. Grad school will force her to use TeX. Although, I did know someone who used Word for their Ph.D. once (ugh!). – J126 Apr 02 '13 at 15:31
  • @muzzlator I will ask her to try that. – J126 Apr 02 '13 at 15:31
  • @JoeJohnson126: Make a new sheet and click Alt and + at the same time to make a box for typing an equation. Then tell her to go to Equation tools (Design) and the part Operators. I see the symbol you wanted there right now. – Mikasa Apr 02 '13 at 15:36
  • @JoeJohnson126 I know of Math grad students who do not know Latex, and was horrified. I'd think of it as an indicator that their quality of work is low. Then again, I'm sure we all know of an (old) prof who doesn't know latex. – Calvin Lin Apr 02 '13 at 15:55
  • I'm not trying to advertise anything, but I am teaching this as an online course that starts next week. (The description in the link is a little outdated - a more up-to-date list of topics would be something like: installation, mathematical and scientific content, formatting, tables, figures including basics of pgfplots, multichapter documents, and beamer.) – 2'5 9'2 Apr 02 '13 at 16:05
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is not a question about Mathematics. For question on how to use Microsoft Word, http://superuser.com is a more appropriate site. – Willie Wong Nov 05 '16 at 01:01

2 Answers2

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It does seem that Word will render the symbol by "copy and paste". It worked in implementation of Word (Office 10), and rendered as Cambria Math (font), with size $13$, which can be scaled to a different font size.

Edit: the symbol "$\boxtimes$" can be directly inserted from/within "Word" using:

  • "insert":

    • "symbol": < choose "normal text": "mathematical operators">.

Or, the better option if working within the Word "Equation Editor" environment:

  • "insert"

    • "Equation": "math operators": < See "special operators">

The symbol in Word is referred to as "squared times."

It rendered as the exact image compared to "copied-and-pasted" symbol I inserted.

amWhy
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  • Yes. I forgot to tell the OP it is called "squared times". Thanks for remarking that. – Mikasa Apr 02 '13 at 15:43
  • My student went with your answer. So, I'll give you the check. – J126 Apr 02 '13 at 16:50
  • @amWhy: I recall there was a Scientific Word that included a CAS with it. I wish someone would make such a nicely integrated tool! Perhaps people are catching up with things like LibreOffice. +1 – Amzoti May 20 '13 at 01:33
  • Is LibreOffice OpenOffice? or has the name changed? – amWhy May 20 '13 at 01:38
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Do as I suggested you above. I made a photo showing that.

**enter image description here**

Mikasa
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