# CL, Latex and Unicode

Colleagues

I have some newbie questions, please.

1. I know Desmos Latex doesn’t support arrows (as used, for example, in limits). Many posts have suggested using Unicode characters. Short of copying and pasting them from other sites, how do you get them into Notes or into Desmos Latex? I’ve tried \$rarr; and the same with the ampersand in all its variants (inside and outside of “maths type”) and, while it renders an arrow here in the forum, it doesn’t render one in activities.

2. On the flip side, how do I get “maths type” to recognise what I’ve put in as being a literal string? I am trying to create a speed = distance/time with words instead of variables to help the kids understand. “Time” and “Speed” seem to be OK but “distance” contains “tan” so it tries to be clever. I’ve tried using {} or \textt or \verbatim but I’m getting no joy.

Any and all help greatly appreciated.

Chris

Hey @chris.young36 !

1. I don’t think there IS a way other than copying and pasting. That is the most common solution I see here. Something like this, of course: https://emojikeyboard.org/

2. I also don’t think you can get a math input box to do what you want. It interprets letters as variables. You could do what you want with a text input. Could you post a link to your activity?

Someone else might chime in with topic links where these discussions have happened, or more positive information!

On part 2, you can type something like \mathrm{hello} and then select it and type a backtick. It will then convert it to the plain text version of what you want.

If you are already in math mode (e.g. because you are typing something into a Math Input) then you can type it somewhere else and then copy-paste it in.

\mathrm{speed}=\frac{\mathrm{\operatorname{distance}}}{\mathrm{time}}