@FaheemMitha -- No, I don't have experience with pdf fillable forms created with LaTeX. (My last experience with a fillable form was for filing my taxes last year. Having no access to Adobe reader or Acrobat, I tried to print them out from the Mac preview, only to have all my carefully filled-in numbers wiped out. I finally had to redo them by hand. Moral: Always work from a copy, never your only original.)

@UlrikeFischer -- That's comforting to know. Thanks.

@barbarabeeton I must admit that I've used align for single equation displays on a regular basis, as well as multiline displays.

@barbarabeeton That sounds unpleasant. One reason I always work with version control. Do you use tax software? When I used to file US taxes, I did.

I'd say he has a point. Why have separate environments for single line and multiline displays?

Is it possible to nest groups inside groups?

Apropos of equation being deprecated or not … I have seen people using aligned wrapped in equation* instead of just using align*. So I was going to ask whether it makes a big difference. But then I decided to run an experiment instead:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
\showboxdepth\maxdimen
\showboxbreadth\maxdimen
zzz \newpage
a
\begin{align*}
  b&=c\\d&=e
\end{align*}
\showlists
\newpage
a
\begin{equation*}
\begin{aligned}
  b&=c\\d&=e
\end{aligned}
\end{equation*}
\showlists

\end{document}

And lo and behold, the differences between the two \showlist outputs are too many to summarise. Any comments?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I always thought the reason for using align is so that things align. Is this incorrect? And what is a good place to look to for guidance for usage?

@FaheemMitha No, that is correct. And of course, aligned does the same, but as part of a bigger display. I am just surprised that the differences seem so large.

For one, the second version is preceded by \abovedisplayshortskip, while the align* version just gets \abovedisplayskip.

(I'll be offline for half an hour maybe, will be interested to see if this sparks any discussion or not.)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen you will get shortdisplayskip for aligned there

@barbarabeeton what?? let me look...

@FaheemMitha that is a bad idea

@DavidCarlisle Indeed, as is evident from the typeset output as well. (I didn't look at it until now, concentrating on the log file instead.) So isn't that a good argument for aligned in equation*, then? Perhaps there is something about it on the main site. I should look.

– except, of course, align* can contain page breaks.

Not exactly, but related

@HaraldHanche-Olsen align is mostly set up for per-line equation numbering, and align* is sort of an afterthought that doesn't number

@DavidCarlisle Hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way before. Thanks.

@JosephWright could you try \l3trial\l3ldb>l3build check -eluatex m3ldb002 (assuming that you have the newest luaotfload)?

ooh quack

@yo' ^^ I wrote it with Lilypond and LuaLaTeX (via lyluatex)!

@PauloCereda nice! Change the 2 notes into two 4 notes with a ~ and it's gonna be perfect!

@yo' ooh thank you! <3

It's for that the bars follow the natural division of 6/8 into two 3/8

@yo' got it. :)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I use that in the book that I edit and use the fact that an aligned is a minimal box centered in the line (like equation is), thus given good circumstances we can use the shortskip capabilities of equation. Nowadays I make a special env for the combination. My main use for it is align* we you can see there is space to save if you switch.

@JosephWright Can you convert this to a comment? tex.stackexchange.com/a/504836/2693

Hi

Mathpix could not log in

is there ny solution to this?

@Student404Mus Is that a particular username on the site?

@AlanMunn it's math snipping tool

image to latex conversion

@Student404Mus Oh. Then clearly I'm no help :)

I don't know what wrong with it. It requires log in , when you hit log in it couldnt

@Student404Mus Maybe a browser issue?

maybe. It contain't built-in web connection.

it seems like it cannot contact the server.

@Student404Mus I just looked at the web site. The user recommendations are stunning. :)

@FaheemMitha -- Re tax software, no, I don't use it. It has probably been fixed by now, but when I first tried it, it ended up showing a $3000 refund, whereas my own (careful!) calculations showed only about $100. Since we had been audited before (and cleared), I preferred to submit figures I understood rather than "blame the computer". Once burned, .... But I did enter the info on the federal pdf forms, which were duly wiped by the pdf reader when I tried to print.

@barbarabeeton When using tax software, I check the numbers myself.

Ditto if I use an actual human accountant.

It's painful, but better safe than sorry.

Software has bugs. And humans make mistakes.

In fact I've been painfully been working my way through tax returns in the last few weeks. And collecting the corresponding paperwork. One of the things I use TeX for.

@barbarabeeton Did you see where the software made an error? Or, to put it differently, did it show the work? :-) And did you attempt to report it?

@FaheemMitha -- I never did figure out where the discrepancy occurred; more than an hour or two wasn't worth the effort. (So far, we haven't used an accountant. Every year, first thing I do is build a custom spreadsheet, and check carefully. The most time-consuming effort is usually gathering the necessary records. This year's forms were a lot more troublesome than previous years', for no appreciable difference in what was owed.)

@barbarabeeton Competent accountants are quite expensive. Ergo, you need to have a lot of money to make it worth it. Or, at any rate, a lot of potential tax to pay.

@FaheemMitha -- I figure that since much of my college work was in applied math, including how to detect errors in math tables, and I know how to read instructions, I should be able to do our taxes. I have also successfully fended off an IRS complaint that I should have included a tax refund, but since I hadn't claimed more than paid in the relevant previous year, they had to back off. So it's not worth taking it all to an expensive accountant. Just have to write clearly.

@barbarabeeton "should have included a tax refund"? You mean so that they could tax your tax refund?

@barbarabeeton Actually, the US tax code is very complicated. So depending on your finances, a competent accountant may make sense.

@FaheemMitha -- Yes, if you claimed more than you actually paid (on local taxes; not on a federal refund).

I think it's quite easy to get things wrong. When I was in the US my finances were very simple, but I still made occasional mistakes.

@FaheemMitha -- Well, since we don't own any oil wells, and aren't landlords, we really don't have to deal with the really squirrelly stuff.

@barbarabeeton Sure, I understand.

@FaheemMitha -- We'd rather spend money on something we enjoy, like a show or a nice dinner out.

@barbarabeeton One could look at it as insurance. Actually, in India I use an accountant, because it's cheaper. Though the first accountant we used was terrible, gave us misinformation, and actually cost us quite a lot of money. I'm now using someone else, but I also do my own research. The current one is cheap, but I don't reply on him to pay much attention, just not to give me misinformation. I wish there was an Dummies Guide to Indian Taxation, but I've not found one.

There is a lot of Indian Tax stuff on various web sites though. And when they all say the same thing, it's reassuring. Also, I've found the actual Indian tax site surprisingly helpful. I downloaded a tutorial yesterday on LTCG which was actually useful.

@AlanMunn Yes. But I don't know whether their comments are about the latest beta version the developers released or older versions. Anyway I contacted the developers for my issue.

@Student404Mus I was just joking, really. On the main page they have "quotes" from Einstein, Newton and Turing. :)

@AlanMunn Upon reading the tutorial part of the TikZ manual, it seems rather likely that it originated with Euclid himself, being dissatisfied with the typesetting technologies available to him at the time.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen If not, he's surely responsible for tkz-euclide. Although the French seems a bit modern for his time.

@AlanMunn Just like the English of the King James bible seems a bit modern for Jesus?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen And the typesetting.

@egreg Kindest, I hope you've read my messages. Good rest and good work. I'm going to bed because tomorrow I will go, at 7:45 to the sea to have fun with the fish. I feed them and make some of them even touch. Greetings.