A MathML Progress Report
Autumn Cuellar
@autumnc
Overview
• The MathML standard
• MathML in other standards
• MathML software support
• Conclusion
2
MathML
• The W3C standard for encoding
mathematics in XML
• MathML working group emerged from
HTML 3 discussions
3
MathML
• MathML 1 spec finalized in 1998
• Content MathML a  b
• Presentation MathML a * b, a  b, ab
• Interface MathML
• MathML 2 in 2003
• MathML 3 in late 2010
4
MathML 3
• Line wrapping and line breaking
5
MathML 3
• Elementary math
6
MathML 3
• International math support
7
Adoption Within Other Standards
• Content MathML
• CellML
• SBML
• PhysML
8
Adoption Within Other Standards
• Presentation MathML
• DocBook
• DITA 1.3
• Journal Article Tag Set
• Accessibility:
• DAISY
• NIMAS
• PDF/UA
9
HTML / EPUB
• HTML5 and EPUB 3 now have MathML
support
• A sign of how far MathML has come
• Inclusion  consistent display
• Take digital content to the next level
10
Tool Support
• Handwriting
• Math Input Panel (Microsoft)
• MoboMath (Enventra)
• MyScript (Vision Objects)
• Computation
• Maple
• Mathematica
11
Tool Support
• Document creation
• Word processors: MS Word
• XML editors:
• <oXygen/>
• FrameMaker
• XMetaL
• Flare
12
Tool Support
• SDKs
• MathFlow Components
• WIRIS
• Rendering engines
• MathJax
• MathFlow
• JEuclid
13
Tool Support – Work Required
• Conversion from legacy formats
• Proprietary math formats
• Ex. FrameMaker math
• LaTeX/TeX
• PDF documents
• OCR software: InftyReader
14
Tool Support – Work Required
• Browsers/eReaders
• Some MathML: Firefox, Safari
• No MathML: IE, Chrome, Opera
• eReaders often built on browsers
• Disadvantages of MathJax
• Slow – must convert MathML
• Difficult to modify and query MathML as
part of DOM
• Cannot fully apply CSS to MathML
15
Mathematics in eBooks
• Frédéric Wang
• Mozilla MathML
• MathJax
• WebKit MathML
• MediaWiki Math
• Project to improve WebKit support of
MathML
• Contributions from Design Science
and XML Prague
16
Conclusion
• MathML is now a mature standard
• It has been adopted into a wide range
of scientific and documentation XML
languages.
• Tool support has come a long way, but
still has room for improvement, esp:
• Conversion to MathML from legacy
formats
• Browser/eReader support
17
Contacts
Design Science:
www.dessci.com
autumnc@dessci.com
Frédéric Wang:
fred.wang@free.fr
http://www.maths-informatique-jeux.com/blog/frederic/
http://www.ulule.com/mathematics-ebooks/news/
http://www.igalia.com/contact/
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