bringing mathematical formatting to the web

Bebo White, SLAC- CHEP2000

Bringing Mathematical Formatting to the Web

An Overview of the Technology and SLAC’s

Experience

Session F19


Background• The need for “math on the web” was

obvious from the start• <math> was included in the HTML+

specification (November 1993)• HTML 4.0 includes Greek/math symbol

sets• But no one knew how to do it right…

– LATEX?– Mathematica?


The Challenges• Rendering

– bringing the granularity of LATEX to the level of HTML

– graphical and textual representations– display issues - baselines, etc.

• Generation– formatting tools– application output


The Challenges (2)• Interoperability

– use of semantic information in other applications


Bitmapped Mathematics

• Easily generated and embedded in HTML pages

• Lack of support in non-graphical systems

• Issues– scaling, anti-aliasing, contrast– inability to edit or extend– concentration only on appearance

• Support - MINSE, WebEQ, etc.


LATEX Approaches to Web Math

LATEX2HTML Equations bitmapped –placed as images

pdfTEX TEX direct to PDF (Omega) TEX in 16bit unicodeTEX4ht TEX to XML with specialsTHT TEX to HTML translatorTechExplorer LATEX to MathML to

browser display


MathML • MathML 1.0 - W3C

Recommendation - April 1998• W3C Math Working Group

composed of major players• MathML is an instance of XML


MathML Goals• To provide a method for defining a

mathematical expression in terms of its presentation and semantics (meaning)

• To provide a low-level format for describing mathematics as a basis for machine to machine communication

• To facilitate the use and re-use of mathematical and scientific content on the Web


Taxonomy of MathML Elements

• Presentation elements - describe mathematical notation structure; e.g., <mrow>

• Content elements - describe mathematical objects directly; e.g., <vector>

• Interface elements - describe external interfaces; e.g., <math> passes parameters to a MathML processor


MathML Example


MathML Example (2)


Authoring MathML• Not intended to be authored

“by hand”• Programs such as

Mathematica, Maple, MathType will support MathML

• Authoring environments (e.g., Amaya)


SLAC and Web Math• SPIRES-HEP Database Catalog• Over 415,000 papers - most with

math• Once accessed via QSPIRES• The first “killer app” on the Web• Control over display via pre-

processing response


Initial Efforts• LATEX2HTML• MINSE

– developed at University of Waterloo– supported by the AMS– “polymediator” - media-independent– uses own math markup but plans for

MathML– server-based


Initial Efforts (2)• WebEQ

– graphic generated by Java application


MINSE Example


IBM TechExplorer• “IBM TechExplorer Hypermedia

Browser”• A Web browser plug-in• Dynamically formats and

displays documents coded with TEX/LATEX and MathML


TechExplorer Example


TechExplorer Example (2)


TechExplorer/SPIRES-HEP Issues

• Titles and Header Information• Abstract Viewing• Linking to Full Documents


References• M. Goosens, S. Rahtz, et. al., “The

LaTeX Web Companion,” Addison-Wesley, 1999

• http://www.w3.org/Math/• MINSE -

http://www.lfw.org/math/top.html• http://www.webeq.com/• http://www.mathtype.com/• http://www.gutenberg.eu.org/omega/


References (2)• http://www.software.ibm.com/

techexplorer• “Communicating Math with Hypertext”,

http://www.geom.umn.edu/events/courses/1996/cmwh/

• “Including Math Notation in Web Pages”, http://forum.swarthmore.edu/typesetting/index.html


References (3)• HTML 4.0 character sets -

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/


Special Thanks• Mimi Jett, IBM Research, who

co-authored the paper• SLAC Library• SLAC Technical Publications

bringing mathematical formatting to the web

Documents

web pages

web mathlatex2htmlequations

math notation

latex web companion

html specification

math markup

1998w3c math

mathematical objects