# Turn off the numbering of equations in the whole file

I am using preparing a presentation with beamer and I would like to have all the equations without the numbers associated to them. I know I can use

\begin{equation*}


or similar. However, since I am going to copy a bunch of equations from another file, is there a way to set by default in the whole file that I do not want the numbering?

Should I redefine equation to be equation*?

• Welcome to TeX.SE. – Mico Jul 6 at 19:24

I suggest you load the mathtools package and use its \newtagform and \usetagform macros to achieve your formatting objective. Specifically, you could (a) use \newtagform to define a "tag" form (aka equation number) called, say, nonums that renders equation numbers invisible, and (b) make use of this tag form via a \usetagform{nonums} directive.

To make equation numbers invisible throughout the document, run \usetagform{nonums} in the preamble. To revert to the default tag form, run \usetagform{default}.

Observe that this approach doesn't actually suppress equation numbers entirely -- it just makes the resulting numbers invisible. This is useful if you need to create cross-references to equations, since cross-references may still be created via the usual \label-\ref route.

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{mathtools}
\newtagform{nonums}[\phantom]{}{} % see pp 9f. of the package's user guide
%% or: \makeatletter \newtagform{nonums}[\,\@gobble]{}{} \makeatother

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}[t]
\frametitle{Equations with and without equation numbers}

$$1+1=2$$

\usetagform{nonums} % don't display "tag", i.e., equation number
$$1+1=2$$

\usetagform{default} % back to default tag form
$$1+1=2$$

\end{frame}
\end{document}


As a quick workaround, you may want to turn off numbering of non-referenced equations. If you don't reference equations, it will do the job. One of the possible ways:

\usepackage{mathtools}
\mathtoolsset{showonlyrefs}