Text Formatting ⇒ leqno is the devil

[marksaul]

I'm having the devil's own time with \leqno. I don't want Latex to 'automatically' number my equations: I want control over which equations have which labels. I have put the line \usepackage[leqno]{amsmath} into my header. Latex seems to know what \leqno means.

But I cannot figure out where to put it. Here's the closest I get:

$$\leqno{(1)} x + 3 = 5$$ (the actual equation is more complicated, but never mind.

Latex then gives me:

(1) x+3 = 5, left justified, with no space between the label and the equation. I want the label to be on the left, and the equation to be centered.

I've tried other ways to put in the command \leqno. Latex sputters and complains, but eventually compiles--with the label missing or in the wrong place.

Q & A here refer to \documentclass [leqno]. I already have a \documentclass statement in my header. Latex shuts down if I add [leqno] to it, or if I write a second \documentclass statement.

There is some fundamental misunderstanding I have about how Latex works. I am a novice user. I copy my environments from elsewhere, then happily use Latex to do my work. Usually, I don't need to know what you guys know. But this one stumps me.

Thanks for any *plain English* help you might be able to provide!

[Bartman]

You could use the \tag command inside an unnumbered version of an environment of the amsmath package.

BTW: You may be interested in mathtools that loads amsmath.

OT: Please read the section about using $$...$$ in l2tabu.