W3C Math Home

MathML for CSS Profile is a W3C Recommendation

2011-06-07

With the advancement of CSS Level 2 Revision 1 to Recommendation, the MathML for CSS Profile automatically also became a Recommendation.

The Profile describes which parts of MathML3 can be formatted with CSS and which can thus be displayed by many types of software that understand CSS but do not understand MathML itself. This allows quite a large part of MathML already to be used even though not all browsers and formatters implement full MathML yet.

The specification had already been tested and reviewed by the W3C members and the W3C Director in October 2010, but it has a normative dependency on CSS, and thus couldn't be a standard unless CSS Level 2 was a standard itself.

MathML3 is a W3C Recommendation

2010-10-21

The W3C Director has advanced MathML version 3.0 to a W3C Recommendation. The press release has more information. Several companies have already expressed support for the new standard.

Compared to MathML 2, the major additions in version 3 are support for bidirectional layout, better linebreaking and explicit positioning, elementary math notations, and a new strict content MathML vocabulary with well-defined semantics.

MathML 3 is also part of version 5 of HTML (currently still in development), which means embedding math in Web documents will become easier, with direct import from HTML to mathematics software and vice versa.

The MathML for CSS Profile has also received positive reviews, but it cannot yet progress to W3C Recommendation, because it depends on CSS2, which is still in CR status. (The CSS working group expects CSS2 to become W3C Recommendation early in 2011.)

MathML3 and MathML for CSS are Proposed Recommendations

2010-08-10

The W3C Director approved the publication of the MathML version 3.0 specification and its companion, the MathML for CSS Profile, as Proposed Recommendations. Until September 10, the two documents undergo what should be the final review by the W3C members, before becoming W3C Recommendations. MathML3 was until now a Candidate Recommendation, which means it was being tested in practice. Becoming Proposed Recommendation means the tests were successful. You can see with the test suite (and the test results of a number of current implementations) how well your software supports MathML.

Mathematical User Interfaces Workshop in Paris on July 10

2010-05-10

Paul Libbrecht and the MKM Conference are organizing MathUI10, the 2010 Workshop on Mathematical User Interfaces. The workshop offers a forum discussing how users can interact with the mathematical objects represented on a computer, how they can manipulate them to feel their mathematical nature, how they can create them, how they can visualize them, and how they can understand them. The deadline for submissions is May 20.

“XML Entity Definitions for Characters” is a W3C Recommendation

2010-04-01

As expected, the specification XML Entity Definitions for Characters has become a W3C Recommendation. The W3C members expressed support for the specification and had no further requests for changes.

Design Science welcomes the XML Entity Definitions for Characters Recommendation. The nature of mathematical notation and its many symbols inevitably leads to the need for good character names. As a leading vendor of scientific communication software, we are keenly aware of the errors and confusions that have long been the result of multiple conflicting sets of names in different contexts. By providing a single, authoritative source of character names – consolidating more than a decade of painstaking work – this specification makes a significant contribution, and we look forward to implementing it in our products.

Dr. Robert Miner, Vice President, Research and Development, Design Science, Inc.

See all W3C member testimonials.

“XML Entity Definitions for Characters” submitted for final review

2010-02-11

The specification XML Entity Definitions for Characters has advanced to the status of Proposed Recommendation, the final step before becoming a standard. It contains names for many mathematical and other symbols, all from the Unicode standard, and thus allows those symbols to be written into XML documents in environments where typing them directly would be difficult or impossible. The specification is used by several types of documents, such as HTML5, DocBook, and, of course, MathML. W3C members have until March 11, 2010, to review the document. The specification should become a W3C Recommendation three or four weeks later.

MathML3 and the MathML for CSS profile are Candidate Recommendations

2009-12-15

The W3C Director today advanced the status of MathML3 from Working Draft to Candidate Recommendation (CR). That means that W3C is now asking people to not only send comments on the text, but to implement the specification and send feedback on any problems found in actual use. The MathML for CSS profile, which describes a subset of MathML3 that can be rendered with existing CSS renderers, was advanced to CR at the same time. The next step for both specifications is PR, as soon as there are sufficiently many implementations. The working group expects to start testing implementations around March 2010. Feedback can be sent to the mailing list.

Last Call and Working Draft of MathML 3.0

2009-09-24

The Math Working Group published a new draft of the MathML 3.0 specification, which is intended to be the last one before the specification becomes a Candidate Recommendation, around the end of the year. That means this is the last call for comments. Please, send comments to . The deadline is November 11. See the status section and appendix F for an overview of the major changes.

New drafts of MathML 3.0 and the MathML for CSS profile

2009-06-04

The Math Working Group published new drafts of two specifications, Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0 and A MathML for CSS profile. The new draft of MathML 3.0 especially affects chapter 4, on content mark-up, but there are smaller improvements throughout the document. The new draft profile adds some elementary math (e.g., long division) and includes sample CSS rules for displaying elementary math formulas. See the drafts for the details and for how to give feedback.

New draft of MathML 3.0

2008-11-17

The Math Working Group published the fourth draft of MathML version 3. Some more of the non-normative text has been removed in favor of a separate Primer. The presentation mark-up now allows the author to insert rendering hints in case the renderer has to insert extra line breaks. But most of the editorial effort has gone into defining the underlying semantics of content mark-up (chapter 4): it is now almost completely expressed in terms of OpenMath Content Dictionaries. That should not affect authors, but it enables software to convert between different math systems. Chapter 8 will eventually describe the structure of those Content Dictionaries. Comments on the draft are very welcome on the group's ( archived ) public mailing list, . There will be at least one more draft before the specification becomes Candidate Recommendation.