Left align block of equations

Question

Hi

I want to left align a block of equations. The equations in the block itself are aligned, but that's not related at all to my question! I want to left align the equations rather than have them centered all the time, because it looks dumb with narrow centered equations.

Example, I want to left align this

\begin{align*}
    |\vec a| &= \sqrt{3^{2}+1^{2}} = \sqrt{10} \\
    |\vec b| &= \sqrt{1^{2}+23^{2}} = \sqrt{530} \\ 
    \cos v &= \frac{26}{\sqrt{10} \cdot \sqrt{530}} \\
    v &= \cos^{-1} \left(\frac{26}{\sqrt{10} \cdot \sqrt{530}}\right) \\
    v &= \uuline{69.08...\degree}
\end{align*}    

but also this

\begin{align*}
    f(x) = -1.25x^{2} + 1.5x
\end{align*}

How is this done? If it's even possible.

Answer 1

Try to use the fleqn document class option.

\documentclass[fleqn]{article}

(See also http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Basics for a list of other options.)