MathML

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Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is an application of XML for representing mathematical symbols and formulae, aimed at integrating them into World Wide Web documents. It is a recommendation of the W3C math working group.

Contents

[edit] History

The specification of version 1.01 of the format was released in July 1999 and version 2.0 appeared in February 2001. In October 2003, the second edition of MathML Version 2.0 was published as the final release by the W3C math working group.

MathML was originally designed before the finalization of XML namespaces. As such, MathML markup is often not namespaced, and applications that deal with MathML, such as the Mozilla browsers, do not require a namespace. For applications that wish to namespace MathML, the recommended namespace URI is http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML.

[edit] Presentation and semantics

MathML deals not only with the presentation but can optionally also include information about the meaning of formula components (the latter part of MathML is known as MathML-Content). Because the meaning of the equation is preserved separate from the presentation, how the content is communicated can be left up to the user. For example, web pages with MathML embedded in them can be viewed as normal web pages with many browsers but visually impaired users can also have the same MathML read to them through the use of screen readers (e.g. using the MathPlayer plugin for Internet Explorer).

[edit] Example

The well-known quadratic formula:

x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}

would be marked up using TeX syntax like this:

x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}

in OpenOffice.org Math like this (both are valid, but letters written together with numbers will not be in italic):

x={-b plusminus sqrt {b^2 - 4 ac}} over {2 a}
x={-b +- sqrt {b^2 - 4ac}} over 2a

and like this in MathML:

<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
 <mi>x</mi>
 <mo>=</mo>
 <mfrac>
  <mrow>
   <mrow>
    <mo>-</mo>
    <mi>b</mi>
   </mrow>
   <mo>&PlusMinus;</mo>
   <msqrt>
    <msup>
     <mi>b</mi>
     <mn>2</mn>
    </msup>
    <mo>-</mo>
    <mrow>
     <mn>4</mn>
     <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
     <mi>a</mi>
     <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
     <mi>c</mi>
    </mrow>
   </msqrt>
  </mrow>
  <mrow>
   <mn>2</mn>
   <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
   <mi>a</mi>
  </mrow>
 </mfrac>
</math>

Although less compact compared to TeX, the XML structuring promises to make it widely usable and allows for instant display in applications such as Web browsers and facilitates a straightforward interpretation of its meaning in mathematical software products. MathML is not intended to be written or edited directly by humans.[1]

[edit] Software support

[edit] Editors

Some editors with native MathML support (including copy and paste of MathML) are Publicon from Wolfram Research and SciWriter from soft4science.

MathML is also supported by major office products such as OpenOffice.org and KOffice and by mathematical software products such as Mathematica.

[edit] Conversion

Several utilities for converting mathematical expressions to MathML are available, including converters [1] between TeX and MathML. ConTeXt does the reverse and uses TeX for typesetting MathML (usually resulting in PDF documents). MathType from Design Science allows users to create equations in a WYSIWYG window and export them as MathML. Also, Wolfram Research provides a web page to convert typed mathematical expressions to MathML.

GNU TeXmacs is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor with extensive support for mathematics. Converters exist for presentation MathML in both directions. TeXmacs can be used to write mathematical articles which are exported to XHTML with embedded MathML. Another WYSIWYG MathML-as-is editor, Formulator [2] provides a means for importing/exporting MathML with support for some abstract entities such as &ExponentialE; and &DifferentialD;. The W3C Browser/Editor Amaya can also be mentioned as a WYSIWYG MathML-as-is editor.

[edit] Web browsers

Of the major web browsers, those that directly support the format are recent versions of Gecko browsers (e.g., Firefox and Camino).[3] Other browsers support the format using external plugins. For example, Internet Explorer supports MathML using the Design Science MathPlayer plugin.

[edit] Web conversion

ASCIIMath [4] provides a JavaScript library to re-write a convenient Wiki-like text syntax used inline in web pages into MathML on the fly; it works in browsers with MathML support or plug-ins. LaTeXMathML [5] does the same for (a subset of) the standard LaTeX math syntax.

Blahtex is a TeX-to-MathML converter intended for use with MediaWiki, which may possibly add MathML support into Wikipedia, in addition to the current HTML and PNG output options.

[edit] Other standards

Another standard called OpenMath which has been designed (largely by the same people who devised MathML-Content) more specifically for storing formulae semantically can also be used to complement MathML.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Buswell, Steven; Devitt, Stan; Diaz, Angel; et al (7 July 1999). Mathematical Markup Language (MathML™) 1.01 Specification (Abstract). Retrieved on 26 September, 2006. “While MathML is human-readable it is anticipated that, in all but the simplest cases, authors will use equation editors, conversion programs, and other specialized software tools to generate MathML.”

[edit] External links

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