From thrift@ra.csc.ti.com Fri May 20 10:17:58 1994
Article: 16838 of comp.infosystems.www
From: thrift@ra.csc.ti.com (Philip Thrift)
Subject: Embedding LaTeX in HTML
Organization: Texas Instruments
Date: Thu, 19 May 94 19:12:01 GMT-1:00

There has been some discussion about including math and table
data, which LaTeX is good for, in HTML files (a problem until MATH and
TABLE containers are generally supported). Below is a solution I use
that some may find useful (I have). There is of course the latex2html
package at

 http://cbl.leeds.ac.uk/nikos/tex2html/doc/latex2html/latex2html.html

and the method below uses pstogif, pstoppm.ps, pstoxbm from that
package. The approach I use below is sort of the opposite of
latex2html: embed LaTeX in HTML and translate. Pending approval, I
could probably release the software, but the filter I wrote is simple,
so I hope this explanation is sufficient for now. I am not aware of
anyone else using this approach.

The solution I use is to embed LaTeX data in HTML comments. Anything
in <!--#tex ... --> is considered LaTex data. This is similar to the
way 'server side includes' are done in the latest WWW protocol.

Below is an example of an HTMX file (containing LaTeX in HTML comments):
example.htmx:
------------------------------------------------------------------
<TITLE>Example of embedding LaTex in an HTML file</TITLE>

<P>Here is an example of a table:
<P ALIGN=center><A NAME=table1>
<!--#tex
    \begin{tabular}{|l|l|r|} \hline\hline
    {\em type} &
     \multicolumn{2}{c|}{\em style} \\ \hline\hline
     smart    & red  & short \\
     rather silly & blue & tall \\ \hline\hline
    \end{tabular}
--></A>
<P>Euler's equation looks like:
<P ALIGN=center><A NAME=euler>
<!--#tex
    \[ e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0  \]
--></A>
<P>where <!--#tex \(e\)--> is the natural logarithm base 
and <!--#tex \(i = \sqrt{-1}\)-->.
------------------------------------------------------------------

I wrote a filter 'axtex' that extracts the LaTeX "objects" from HTMX
files and produces a .tex and ultimately an image file for each one,
and produces an HTML file with the corresponding inlines:

example.html:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
<TITLE>Example of embedding LaTex in an HTML file</TITLE>

<P>Here is an example of a table:
<P ALIGN=center><A NAME=table1>
<IMG SRC="example_01.xbm"></A>
<P>Euler's equation looks like:
<P ALIGN=center><A NAME=euler>
<IMG SRC="example_02.xbm"></A>
<P>where <IMG SRC="example_03.xbm"> is the natural logarithm base 
and <IMG SRC="example_04.xbm">.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The XBM files (or GIF could have been generated) are created by the
'axtex' filter using the latex,dvips, and pstoxbm (or pstogif)
utilities.

I found this approach useful from the point of view of an HTML author:
you only want to escape to LaTeX when you need to (for now).

-pt