W3C Math Home
What is MathML?
MathML 2.0, a W3C Recommendation was released on 21 Feb 2001. A product of the W3C Math working group, MathML is a low-level specification for describing mathematics as a basis for machine to machine communication. It provides a much needed foundation for the inclusion of mathematical expressions in Web pages [more].
Try it!
Many implementations of MathML are available (browsers and authoring tools), many of which are open source software. Go to the MathML Software list for descriptions and pointers, or read the Implementation and Interoperability report.
There is a good chance that your browser already supports MathML (possibly with the addition of a plug-in). You can try this test page to find out. If you want to put your mathematics on-line this way, read our Putting mathematics on the Web with MathML document.
- A Gentle Introduction to MathML by Robert Miner and Jeff Schaeffer
- MathML: Presenting and Capturing Mathematics for the Web by Michael Kohlhase
- The MathML Handbook, by Pavi Sandhu
- The Importance of MathML to Mathematics Communication by R. Miner
- Mathematics on the Web with MathML by M. Froumentin
- Math on the Web: A Status Report (Sep 2002) by R. Miner and P. Topping.
- OpenMath, a language to represent semantic mathematical objects
- MathWeb.org, supporting mathematics on the Web
- Math on the Web from AMS
- MathML Central by Wolfram Research
- MathML Information Center by Design Science
- SGML/XML and Math by Robin Cover
- Zvon MathML examples
- MathZilla = MathML + Mozilla
- ActiveMath, a learning environment for mathematics
- The Math Forum, an online math education community center
- Journal of Online Mathematics
- EMTeachline®educational sotfware: School mathematics in XML-MathML
- Mathforge: math news and message board
News
2008-07-21: New draft of “XML Entity definitions for Characters”
The Math Working Group published a new version of the draft XML Entity definitions for Characters. The specification defines names for many Unicode symbols. The names can be used in MathML if the use of the symbols themselves is inconvenient or impossible. The list of names is a superset of the list defined by HTML. The specification includes DTDs to include the names in other XML-based formats and also XSLT2 scripts to convert symbols to names.
2008-05-27: Mathematical User-Interfaces Workshop 2008
The organizers of the Mathematical User-Interfaces Workshop 2008 call for papers. The workshop takes place at the Seventh Mathematical Knowledge Management Conference, at the University of Birmingham, UK, July 27th 2008. The coordinator is Paul Libbrecht. Papers can be submitted until May 31, 2008.
2008-05-27: Planet MathML news aggregator
The Math Working Group has set up a syndicator for MathML-related news, called “Planet MathML.” It includes news about Math software, news from the Math WG itself (of course), blog entries written by working group members, and articles from the <www-math@w3.org> mailing list and elsewhere.
2008-04-09: New draft of MathML 3
The Math Working group published a new draft of MathML 3. Especially chapter 4, Content Markup, has improved, and the content dictionaries (section 4.4) are aligned with OpenMath3. Some other material has been removed and will reappear later in a separate primer.
2008-01-18: New Working Drafts
The Math Working Group published new drafts of three specifications: A MathML for CSS profile (a profile of MathML3 that can be displayed with current CSS), MathML 3.0 and XML Entity definitions for Characters (a list of names for Unicode characters, selected from existing standards, for use in MathML or elsewhere). The Entity definitions draft was published for the first time.
2007-04-27: Working Drafts for MathML3 and MathML for CSS published
The Math Working Group published the first drafts of two new specifications: MathML version 3 is the latest version of MathML and A MathML for CSS profile describes how to use (a subset of) MathML3 that can be rendered in browsers that only support CSS. The new version of MathML will have better support for bidirectional text, better alignment with OpenMath, and will fix a number of errors and changes that have become necessary because of changes outside of MathML, such as new versions of Unicode.
2006-06-28: W3C Launches Math Working Group for MathML 3.0
W3C is pleased to announce the launch of a new Math Working Group to replace the Math Interest Group. Patrick Ion (Invited Expert, representing the American Mathematical Society) and Robert Miner (Design Science) will co-Chair. The group is chartered through 29 February 2008 to produce a new MathML 3.0 Recommendation, to improve and expand MathML in the areas of internationalization, accessibility, and mathematical richness. W3C Members may use this form to join the Working Group.
2006-04-05: Dadzilla, a MathML browser supporting Arabic
Dadzilla
is a browser that can display MathML. Versions 1.1 (Linux)
and 1.2 (Windows) support MathML in Arabic, as described in the
W3C Note “Arabic mathematical
notation,” as well as mixed Latin and Arabic texts.
Dadzilla has been written by Mustapha Eddahibi and Azzeddine
Lazrek (Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech, Morocco) and is
based on Mozilla.
2006-01-31: New W3C Note “Arabic mathematical notation”
The Math IG published a note called “Arabic mathematical notation,” which analyzes the use of MathML in documents written in the Arabic script. There are pitfalls in the correct implementation of MathML in right-to-left scripts, but there are also limitations of MathML itself that might require an update of the standard.
2005-02-10: Blogging maths with MathML and Movable Type
Jacques Distler has adapted MovableType into a MathML publishing platform. With the help of a plugin, TeX equations in weblog entries and in comments are automatically converted to MathML. Technical details are on his weblog. The String Coffee Table is another weblog making extensive use of this technology.
$Id: Overview.html,v 1.224 2008/07/21 18:55:11 bbos Exp $.This page was generated using XSLT. The XML source is available for viewing on an XSLT-enabled browser. The news items are also readable through an RSS feed, as well as an Atom 0.3 feed.