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Possible Duplicate:
Can we turn off math-tex please?
Why doesn't maths render as maths?

I seem to be having difficulty using MathJax or TeX or LaTeX or whatever it is. when I try to type something like 

$\sin^2 \theta$

it just shows up as that text and not as an equation... (I have not posted a question before, so perhaps it only appears that way in the preview, in which case what would be the point of the preview??). Anyway sorry to be so clueless, but if anyone could clue me in that would be great, right now my impressions is that dollar signs $ are the beginning and end of 'equation strings' or whatever the correct term is...

Also in general, would it make sense that all the other strings only start to be rendered after I downloaded and extracted protex? According to the MathJax website, you just need JavaScript enabled...

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    Are you talking about this website? For TeX.stackexchange, we do not enable MathJax. It is enabled on math.stackexchange and mathoverflow. Preview allows you to see other formatting things, like lists, horizontal rules, codes, bold/italic characters...
    – Willie Wong
    Nov 19, 2010 at 19:19
  • ok thanks for that clarification, but yes i was referring to math.stackexchange as well.... the string from above is simply copied from the left hand side example that comes up when you ask a question.
    – luke
    Nov 19, 2010 at 19:46
  • so just to be absolutely clear, i should see my mathjax rendered in the preview on math.stackexchange right?
    – luke
    Nov 19, 2010 at 19:46
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    It would be pointless to have MathJax enabled. There would be no way to write or view code samples.
    – Kristen
    Nov 19, 2010 at 19:48
  • ok so does that mean that the 'preview' section will just show the raw code and that when i press post it will turn into the equation that i am trying to express?? what if i make an error?
    – luke
    Nov 19, 2010 at 20:02
  • This should be moved to meta (and if you're asking about math.stackexchange.com, you'll get better answers on meta.math.stackexchange.com). But to repeat what Willie said: we don't have MathJax here. There is MathJax on math.stackexchange.com and mathoverflow.com, but those are different websites (though they have the same backend). To repeat what Kristen said, The reason we don't have MathJax is because it wouldn't be helpful: since this site usually has questions about TeX code, we need to see the TeX code, and not what it renders as (or fails to render as).
    – Antal Spector-Zabusky
    Nov 19, 2010 at 20:07
  • If you are trying to use MathJAX on a site that you know has MathJAX installed and activated, try \( \sin^2\theta\) instead of $\sin^2(\theta)$ The default configuration of MathJAX is not to recognize $...$ as math mode delimiters since the dollar sign is so commonly used in normal writing. But as others have commented...you'll probably get better support for this particular issue somewhere else.
    – Matthew Leingang
    Nov 19, 2010 at 20:29
  • @Willie, @luke, @Kristen, @Antal, @Matthew (hope I got everyone!). I've migrated this to meta.tex.SX as it certainly doesn't belong on the main site (I'm not sure that it belongs here - is it about this site or about math.SX? - but while we sort that out, it should be here rather than on the main site).
    – Andrew Stacey
    Nov 19, 2010 at 21:37
  • @Andrew: Thanks! It had skipped my mind that we have the power to migrate to meta, else I'd have flagged for your (or other mod's) attention.
    – Willie Wong
    Nov 20, 2010 at 0:05
  • Just like meta.tex.stackexchange.com/questions/7/we-need-tex-markup, the more accurate duplicate might actually be meta.tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1272/…, as that is an faq question. Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that we don't want any code to render and this question can be closed and be tagged status-declined.
    – doncherry
    Mar 17, 2012 at 13:21

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