MathML at MIT
Overview
Welcome to the MIT MathML home page.
MathML (Mathematical Markup Language) is an XML application from
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Math Working Group for describing
mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content.
It provides a much needed foundation for the inclusion of mathematical
expressions in web pages.
On this page, you will find basic information to help you get started
with using MathML. Although intended primarily for an MIT audience
and focused on tools and software used and supported at MIT, the
information should be useful to a broader public.
Note: links to third-party software point to MIT pages
if the product is supported at MIT and to the vendor's otherwise.
System
Requirements
To work with MathML, you need a MathML-compliant browser and, if
you choose to use Mozilla or Netscape, mathematical fonts installed
on your machine (essentially the Mathematica and Computer Modern
TeX fonts).
Common Web Browsers Supporting MathML
Note: using the MathPlayer plug-in spares you
the step of downloading and installing the fonts (because the plug-in
already comes with mathematical fonts). However, MathPlayer is only
available for Windows. Update Spring 2004: the
last version (2.0) of MathPlayer has an accessibility feature able
to speak equations through your computer's sound system.
Math Fonts to Install for Mozilla/Netscape
Information on, and links to, the fonts to install is listed on
the Fonts for MathML-enabled
Mozilla page. To make it easier for end-users to install the
fonts, we are in the process of building fonts packages that will
install the fonts on your machine in just a few clicks:
Important Note for Mac Users
A rendering bug
with the Mathematica fonts showed up in Mozilla version 1.3 beta
and is present in all the versions thereafter (hence in Netscape
7.1 -- which is based on the Mozilla 1.4 engine -- as well). Until
this bug is fixed, we recommend Mac users to download earlier
Mozilla versions (prior to 1.3 beta) for a satisfying MathML
rendering experience. Below are direct links to versions 1.3 alpha
and 1.2.1.
Status on Athena
MathML is supported on Athena as Mozilla is the default
browser. Athena 9.3 uses an Xft-enabled build of Mozilla and has the TrueType TeX and Mathematica 4.1 fonts already installed.
Status on Stellar
The current version of Stellar (1.6) doesn't support MathML
in the sense that MathML tags pasted into a Stellar text box window
will be rejected. Support for MathML (and more generally XML) is
expected over the summer when version 2.0 will be released. Of course,
however, users can upload, or link to, a file with equations in
MathML on their Stellar website.
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Examples
Test Pages
These pages are useful to check whether your browser supports
MathML and whether the necessary fonts are installed on your machine:
Examples Drawn From MIT Courses That Make Use of MathML
Examples Drawn From Courses Outside of MIT
This list is expected to grow over time. If you have a page that
you would like to have listed here, contact us.
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Tools
MathML is too verbose to be authored directly. Users should rely
on tools and software to build web pages with MathML. The list below
is not meant to be comprehensive and is an attempt to capture a
few expected common tasks here at MIT given the type of work people
do and the tools available. For a complete list of software and
tools supporting MathML, visit the W3C
Math software page.
Converting TeX/LaTeX into MathML
- TtM -- developed and maintained
by Ian Hutchinson of MIT (available for Windows and Linux platforms
and installed on Athena).
- TeX4moz -- a customization of
the open-source software TeX4ht for
converting TeX documents into MathML (available for Windows and
Linux platforms).
Converting Microsoft Word and Scientific Word into MathML
- MathType -- professional
version of the Equation Editor in Microsoft Word (available for
Windows platforms and Macintosh platforms running an emulator program such as Virtual PC).
- Scientific Word -- a
mathematical WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processor
for creating technical documents (available for Windows platforms and Macintosh
platforms running an emulator program such as Virtual PC) -- supports MathML since version 4.
Others
- Mathematica
supports MathML since version 4.2. Users can now save Mathematica
notebooks as web pages with equations represented in MathML (available
for Windows, Macintosh, Unix/Linux platforms and installed on
Athena).
- Maple supports
MathML since version 7. Users can now save Maple worksheets as
web pages with equations represented in MathML (available for
Windows, Macintosh, Unix/Linux platforms and installed on Athena).
- WebEQ -- a suite of Java-based
software tools for authoring and displaying equations in a web
page -- supports MathML (available for Windows, Macintosh, Linux,
and Solaris; an old version is installed on Athena).
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Practical
Considerations
Suggested Steps to Get Started
- Go to one of the test pages listed above
to check whether your browser supports MathML and download a MathML-compliant
version if necessary.
- Download and install the math fonts if
you are using Mozilla or Netscape.
Including MathML in Web Pages
- As MathML is XML-based, make sure your document has the .xml
extension (and not .html) in its name.
- To have your document viewable on a large number of browsers,
make sure you follow the recommendations listed by the W3C. Ideally,
you would want to check that your document is rendered correctly
under Mozilla (or Netscape 7) on Windows, Linux, and Mac, and,
in addition, under Internet Explorer on Windows. (Update
Spring 2004: the latest version of MathPlayer makes
it much easier to create MathML web pages viewable on a large
number of browsers. If you want to create a
page from scratch, plese read the information provided by Design
Science.
Note: many of the tools mentioned above statisfy these requirements automatically.
- When posting your web page, add links to the supported browsers
and to the fonts installers to make sure your audience can easily
get the tools to be able to view your page.
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Resources
Links
Textbook
Mailing Lists
- www-math -- a mailing
list for MathML maintained by the W3C Math Working Group.
- netscape.public.mozilla.mathml -- a public newsgroup
for discussing MathML issues in Mozilla (accessible from a newsgroup
viewer or from a Web site that archives newsgroups such as Google
Groups).
At MIT
Support and documentation for MathML is available
thanks to many participants. See our Acknowledgements.
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