Math on the web

It is an amazing and unfortunate oversight that there is not a straightforward way to do this.

I stumbled across this link which documents a very nice way of doing math. It is just a teaser as it suggests something very nice, which does not work.

They say that MathML will be part of HTML 5 (which is now available in current Firefox browsers), but other browsers are coming along slowly and who knows if they will ever support it.

Here is an equation laid out using MathML. Actually, you should see two identical equations. If you see the second one, that indicates you are using an HTML 5 compliant browser, and I can leave off the lengthy preamble needed in the general case. To see the source, just view the page source by typing Control-U (you are using firefox aren't you?), or by using Tools->WebDeveloper->PageSource.

$a<!--\; \; -->x^2+b<!--\; \; -->x+c$           $a<!--\; \; -->x^2+b<!--\; \; -->x+c$

MathML is extremely tedious, but it works.

It works with my browser (Firefox 8.0 as of 12-7-2011). If it doesn't work with yours, it is time to get a plugin or to switch browsers, or to complain bitterly, or abandon Microsoft (not necessarily in that order). It works for me. If it doesn't work for you, it means that you are clueless and using lame and broken software, and that is not my problem.

Now what I want is a translator that generates mathml from TeX like equations. And I am not the first one who has wanted this. There is a number of open source programs and online tools for this.

• TtM - a TeX to MathML translator
• TtM -- local copy of C source
• Online Translator
• Blahtex
• local copy of blahtex C++ source

Something called "MathJax" allows you to put math expressions on the web, I should look into it, but probably won't given that MathML works for me and I have better things to do.