# Prevent front-end from reformatting long fractions while editing

I am editing an expression containing wide fractions (typeset with fraction boxes):

But if, while editing the equation, the fraction exceeds some threshold (seems to be approximately the window width), the front-end will helpfully replace my nicely-typeset fraction box

$$\frac{\text{numerator numerator numerator}}{\text{denominator denominator denominator}}$$

with (numerator numerator numerator)/(denominator denominator denominator) (on one line, with parentheses added). This also happens if you write the equation correctly, and then resize the window to be narrower than the fraction (even if the cursor isn't in that cell!)

The automatic reformatting persists after resizing the window back:

The result is an unreadable jumble.

This is a serious problem for anyone using a tiling window manager.

The same issue occurs with wide expressions inside of square-root signs.

Is it possible to disable this behavior?

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Try setting the option FractionBoxOptions, suboption MultilineFunction to None for the style, or globally.

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–  Mechanical snail Nov 22 '12 at 7:24
Nice contribution @Mechanicalsnail –  Rojo Nov 22 '12 at 7:29

You can always use ctrl+shift+T to force the cell displayed as TraditionalForm, or ctrl+shift+I to InputForm, or ctrl+shift+N to StandardForm

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What does this have to do with the question? –  Mechanical snail Nov 22 '12 at 7:25