Frequently Asked Question List for TeX
There are those who consider that papers look untidy with numbers on every equation; there is also a school of thought that claims that there should be numbers everywhere, in case some reader wants to make reference an equation to which the author made no cross-reference.
If you hold to the “only cross-referenced” school of thought, you
can (using the \nonumber
command on the relevant equations, or by
using the amsmath
unnumbered environments such as
equation*
) mark those of your equations to which you
make no reference. In a long or complex paper, this procedure could
well become deeply tedious.
Fortunately, help is at hand: the mh
bundle’s
mathtools
package offers a showonlyrefs
switch through its \mathtoolsset
command; when that’s in
operation, only those equations to which you make reference will be
numbered in the final output. See the package’s documentation for
details of how to make references when the switch is in effect.
FAQ ID: Q-mathonlyref
Tags: math