Bringing Mathematical Formatting to the Web

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Bringing Mathematical Formatting to the Web

• An Overview of the Technology and SLACs
  Experience
• Session F19

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Background

• The need for math on the web was obvious from
  the start
• ltmathgt 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?

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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

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The Challenges (2)

• Interoperability
• use of semantic information in other applications

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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.

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LATEX Approaches to Web Math
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MathML

• MathML 1.0 - W3C Recommendation - April 1998
• W3C Math Working Group composed of major players
• MathML is an instance of XML

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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

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Taxonomy of MathML Elements

• Presentation elements - describe mathematical
  notation structure e.g., ltmrowgt
• Content elements - describe mathematical objects
  directly e.g., ltvectorgt
• Interface elements - describe external
  interfaces e.g., ltmathgt passes parameters to a
  MathML processor

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MathML Example
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MathML Example (2)
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Authoring MathML

• Not intended to be authored by hand
• Programs such as Mathematica, Maple, MathType
  will support MathML
• Authoring environments (e.g., Amaya)

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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

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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

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Initial Efforts (2)

• WebEQ
• graphic generated by Java application

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MINSE Example
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IBM TechExplorer

• IBM TechExplorer Hypermedia Browser
• A Web browser plug-in
• Dynamically formats and displays documents coded
  with TEX/LATEX and MathML

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TechExplorer Example
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TechExplorer Example (2)
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TechExplorer/SPIRES-HEP Issues

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

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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/

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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

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References (3)

• HTML 4.0 character sets - http//www.w3.org/MarkUp
  /

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Special Thanks

• Mimi Jett, IBM Research, who co-authored the
  paper
• SLAC Library
• SLAC Technical Publications