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Lyx is the answer

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40hz:
Actually, 40, had I not suggested mathtype to my partner, he was going to do it just as you said: creating the vector art directly in the program (Indesign, not Illustrator, although he was doing it there also).
Your way is logical, and also just cool.  I actually wouldn't mind doing it (I'm very particular about how to present math solutions properly).  But in our case, it's clearly not a good use of time and resources.  You're more like my partner in this stuff, he enjoys the personal touch in all of this. 

-superboyac (March 16, 2011, 11:45 PM)
--- End quote ---

You give us too much credit. It was neither cool nor intended to provide a personal touch.  ;)

Not being all that knowledgeable about engineering or math software, it was the only bloody way we could get acceptable quality within the time and budget constraints we'd been given. Basically we used what we had and knew best - and went from there.   ;D

Turned out it worked very well - and proved to be remarkably efficient down the road since all the formulas could be dropped in like tiles afterwards. Definitely not the optimal or most elegant strategy for how to get a project like that manual done. But it was a workable method. And sometimes, 'workable' is as good as it gets.

Like the chief engineer for the Data General Eclipse 'Eagle' computer said: Not everything worth doing is worth doing well. Sometimes you have to learn to accept the constraints you're given.  We built the machine we thought we could get away with building. But that's just the way things work here so it's really not all that important. What's really important is that you get your machine out the door.


 8)

superboyac:
Not everything worth doing is worth doing well.
--- End quote ---
I keep having to remind myself of this.  I go overboard with this stuff.  It's funny, our process was like this:
I'd write all the math and formulas on my wacom tablet and photoshop, then I'd send the exported png to my partner, who would enter it in the mathtype and indesign.  But the eps form mathtype looks HORRIBLE on the mac version of indesign.  It might be an issue with installed fonts or something like that.  We are having some minor graphics problems.  I'll be able to look into it in a couple of weeks after I finish all the math stuff.  So we've done well, I think, so far, it's just that I feel there's some room for some practical improvement.

Edvard:
Well, if that's all you really need, then I upvote the vector idea... +1

However, if you're not entirely turned off of Latex yet, and since your final layouts are being done on a Mac, may I suggest Latexit:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/latexit.html

(requires MacTex: http://www.tug.org/mactex/)

No bugging around with layouts, configurations, or documents; just work up your math snippet, export and paste.

superboyac:
Thanks Edvard.  I looked into that program, but it's not sufficient.  It doesn't have enough flexibility with exporting.  I'm not going to stick pdf exports in my documents.  It needs to be EPS, or something equal.

Whoever recommended Incopy:  I'm looking into it.  Seems like something we should get.  Still, Adobe really needs to build in some math/equation capabilities.  Cmon already.  Reminds me of how Microsoft never improves their numbered and unordered list style editor...version after version after version.  Has it changed at all in the last 10 years?  Stop with the ribbon and fix the tools that are fundamental to the nature of the program.
How can you expect to be the industry standard for desktop publishing and not have the ability to do math?

Edvard:
This here says Latexit can export EPS:
http://pierre.chachatelier.fr/programmation/latexit_en.php

Besides, it's freeware, so it's practically painless to give it a shot.

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