# Request for Hypatia: Shortened/customizable hotstrings, derivative hotstrings

**URL:** <https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/t/request-for-hypatia-shortened-customizable-hotstrings-derivative-hotstrings/293>\
**Category:** Hypatia Create\
**Created:** [March 29, 2025, 3:06am UTC](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/t/request-for-hypatia-shortened-customizable-hotstrings-derivative-hotstrings/293 "2025-03-29T03:06:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Will](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/90ced4/32.png) [@Will](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/u/Will)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 3:06am UTC](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/t/request-for-hypatia-shortened-customizable-hotstrings-derivative-hotstrings/293/1 "2025-03-29T03:06:28Z")

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Note: When I say hot string, I mean a string of characters that, when typed, are automatically replaced with a mathematical symbol. e.g. “frac” is replaced with a fraction symbol.

Some hot strings are long and cumbersome, like giventhat, evaluateat, and epsilon. I think shortening these and others to something like “giv”,“eval”, and “eps” would be immensely helpful. Also or alternatively helpful would be a way for users to customize default hot strings to their preference. I use Hypatia to take notes during lectures and cumbersome strings like this can cause me to fall a bit behind.

Also, I’ve used d/dx or partial/partialx _dozens_ of times in a single insert and typing them out that many times gets pretty frustrating (fracdd and fracpartialpartial). Hot strings for those would also be great, like dd and pdd, or ndd and npdd for _n_th order derivatives.

P.S. Hypatia has been a lifesaver since written notes and Latex tend to be a struggle for me. Keep up the good work! 🙂

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**Author:** ![admin](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/3ec8ea/32.png) [@admin](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/u/admin)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 7:01am UTC](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/t/request-for-hypatia-shortened-customizable-hotstrings-derivative-hotstrings/293/2 "2025-04-02T07:01:21Z")

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Thank you for suggestions! We will consider adding shortcuts for partial derivatives and in general, options for adding custom shortcuts.

For now, let us suggests faster ways how to type some of the symbols that are already available:

- giventhat: can be inserted via following sequence `\gi` + ENTER
- evaluateat: `\ev` + ENTER
- epsilon: `\ep` + ENTER
- d/dx already has a shortcut: `diff`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![admin](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/3ec8ea/32.png) [@admin](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/u/admin)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 10:23pm UTC](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/t/request-for-hypatia-shortened-customizable-hotstrings-derivative-hotstrings/293/3 "2025-05-15T22:23:14Z")

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We have added new features to support partial and higher order derivatives.

As already mentioned, you can insert derivative dy/dx using `diff` command. We have now also added a similar command for partial derivative `pdf`. So for example, typing `pdf` + SPACE will produce:  
 ![image](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/uploads/default/original/1X/212002323f36f8555a3e816d4c46e0d3fc9fcd36.png)

For the higher order derivative you can just simply move caret after d in the nominator and attach a superscript to it (with `^`):  
 ![image](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/uploads/default/original/1X/ece07c91c9c262b585906548b8f52cb4f16f1ab5.png)  
 ![image](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/uploads/default/original/1X/6b6946ffa7d8fe99252aefdc4c843a3850b740c8.png)  
 ![image](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/uploads/default/original/1X/64e4765752fff64a45f8d4ea745a9f63d39f7ec9.png)

The `d` symbol can be inserted also directly by typing `dd` + SPACE. For example, it can be used to produce a better looking integral:  
 ![image](https://discourse.hypatiasys.com/uploads/default/original/1X/dd64493f422b5d29546a688a58bf3070fc96b4e5.png)