Math Input Panel and Snipping Tool to quickly put mathematics on the web

Snipping tool is one of the utilities available in Windows 7 that I use a lot. It’s a very convenient way to catch a snapshot of a region of the computer display, and save it as image. I normally save the image in Portable Network Graphic (.png) format, but other formats are available too i.e. JPEG, GIF and single file HTML. Snipping tool has improved my productivity a lot, compared to the traditional way of Print Screen, pasting to Paint, crop a region and save as, as I did before.

Now, coupled with Math Input Panel (also available in Windows 7), publishing math on the web gets much easier. All I need to do is to touchpad-write a math equation into Math Input Panel. The program will recognize the writing, and produce MathML for the equation that can be inserted into a number of software including Office, Opera etc. However, Internet Explorer does not support MathML out of the box, so I’ll have to be content with using Snipping tool to cut the nice math display part.

This approach however does not seem like an optimum way to publish math on the net especially for serious math writer. In my case however, this approach is quick enough and hassle free, and quite importantly, can be done quickly with Windows 7 without needing to install additional software.

Do you recognize the following math formula?