Abstract
This specification defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. MathML is an XML application
for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and
content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served,
received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for
text.
This specification of the markup language MathML is intended
primarily for a readership consisting of those who will be developing
or implementing renderers or editors using it, or software that will
communicate using MathML as a protocol for input or output. It is
not a User's Guide but rather a reference document.
MathML can be used to encode both
mathematical notation and mathematical content. About thirty-five of the
MathML tags describe abstract notational structures, while another
about one hundred and seventy provide a way of unambiguously specifying
the intended meaning of an expression. Additional chapters discuss how
the MathML content and presentation elements interact, and how MathML
renderers might be implemented and should interact with
browsers. Finally, this document addresses the issue of special
characters used for mathematics, their handling in MathML,
their presence in Unicode, and their relation to fonts.
While MathML is human-readable, in all but
the simplest cases, authors use equation editors, conversion
programs, and other specialized software tools to generate
MathML. Several versions of such MathML tools exist, and
more, both freely available software and commercial
products, are under development.
Status of this Document
This section describes the status of this document at the time
of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A
list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this
technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at
http://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document is a W3C First Public Working Draft produced by the W3C Math Working Group as
part of the
W3C Math
Activity.
The goals of the W3C Math Working Group are
discussed in the W3C Math WG
Charter (revised July 2006). A list of participants in the W3C Math Working Group
is available.
Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated,
replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This First Public Working Draft specifies a new version of the
the Mathematical Markup Language, MathML 3.0 [mathml] which is
at present under active
development. The Math WG hopes this outline draft will permit informed feedback on this most important part of its work.
There is a
description of some considerations underlying this work in the W3C Math WG's public
Roadmap [roadmap].
Feedback should be sent to the Public W3C Math mailing list .
The MathML 2.0 (Second Edition) specification has been a W3C Recommendation since
2001. During the period since its recommendation,
a W3C Math Interest Group collected the experience with the
deployment of MathML and identified
issues with MathML that might be ameliorated. The
rechartering af a Math Working Group allows the revision to MathML 3.0
in the light of that experience, of other comments on the markup language, and
of recent changes in specifications of the W3C and in the technological context.
MathML 3.0 does not signal any change in the overall design of
MathML. However, the specification document will be almost completely rewritten
to provide a coherent whole containing corrections to all the known errata
and clarifications of issues that proved problematic and additions made.
Throughout pains are being taken to distinguish the normative and
non-normative aspects.
Public discussion of MathML and issues of support through the W3C
for mathematics on the Web takes place on the public mailing list of the Math Working
Group (list archives).
To subscribe send an email to www-math-request@w3.org
with the word subscribe in the subject line.
Please report errors in this document to www-math@w3.org.
This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual
who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
The basic structure of this document is the same as that of
the earlier MathML 2.0 Recommendation [MathML2].
MathML 2.0 itself was a revision of the earlier W3C Recommendation MathML 1.01
[MathML1];
MathML 3.0 itself is a revision of the W3C Recommendation MathML 2.0.
It differs from it in that all chapters will have been updated, some
new elements and attributes are being added and some have been
deprecated. A current list of open issues, pointing into the
relevant places in
the draft, follows the Table of Contents.
-
Chapters 1 and 2, which are introductory material, have yet to be revised
to reflect the changes elsewhere in the document, and in the rapidly
evolving Web environment.
-
Chapter 3, on presentation-oriented markup, is being extended to
describe new functionalities added as well as smaller improvements of
material already proposed. As a result of concerns for support of
high-quality typesetting and for the relationship with CSS the element
mpadded has been revised, and the maction remains
under discussion for possible deprecation. As a result of
earlier work, as recorded in the W3C Note
Arabic mathematical notation, the relationship with bidirectional text is being clarified.
In addition, some adjustments that have proven necessary for easy
markup of elementary school matheamtics have been made.
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Chapter 4, on content-oriented markup, has been
completely regenerated. The actual content is unchanged in essence,
except for a number of elements the addition of which seemed natural,
such as some for use in statistics. The text of this chapter is now
generated by filtered extraction from XML content dictionaries written
in accordance with OpenMath. The advantages of this method include
a level of consistency in interpretation that the previous version
perhaps did not achieve, automatic generation of some useful and
informative tabulations, and a guarantee of alignment with the basic
part of OpenMath that the community will appreciate.
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Chapter 5 will be newly written to reflect
changes in the technology available. Chapter 6
has been rewritten and reorganized to reflect the
new situation in regard to Unicode. It is expected that some
new ancillary tables will be provided that reflect requests
the WG has received. Chapter 7 needs revision
yet again since Web technology has changed again.
-
Chapter 8 on the DOM and the associated appendices D and E for
detailed listings will be revised further as proves necessary .
