Scientific Markup Languages Birds of a Feather Brief Overview of MathML Timothy W. Cole Mathematics Librarian & Professor of Library Administration University of Illinois at NSDL All Projects Meeting Washington, D.C. 14 October

2 NSDL – Scientific Markup Languages 14 October 2003 University of Illinois at UC MathML Antecedents HTML Math (Dave Raggett, 1994; HTML 3.0/3.2) Limited functionality Community preference to keep HTML generic SGML ISO (1994) Mathematics DTD Exclusively presentational Not as sophisticated as MathML W3C Math Working Group Formed 1997 MathML 1.0 released 1998 MathML 2.0 released 2001

3 NSDL – Scientific Markup Languages 14 October 2003 University of Illinois at UC MathML – Presentation Markup Used to describe the layout structure of mathematical notation – focus on visual constructs (about 30 elements). Includes: Token elements – primarily PCData content models Layout Schemata, for building expressions – element content models z = z 1 2

4 NSDL – Scientific Markup Languages 14 October 2003 University of Illinois at UC MathML – Content (Semantic) Markup Intended to support encoding of the underlying mathematical structure of an expression, rather than any particular rendering for the expression – about 150 elements Limited scope, designed to express “commonplace mathematical constructs,” i.e., through about first 2 years of college 2 z z 1 2

5 NSDL – Scientific Markup Languages 14 October 2003 University of Illinois at UC Combining Presentation & Content MathML z ⩵ z 1 / 2 z z 1 2

6 NSDL – Scientific Markup Languages 14 October 2003 University of Illinois at UC Displaying MathML in Web Browsers Mozilla / Netscape 7.x renders MathML natively But not all elements supported, or supported well Internet Explorer does not render MathML natively But plug-ins available – TechExplorer, MathPlayer Syntax for using MathML different between browsers W3C provides XSLT that allows a page to viewable in both Rendering quality also depends on fonts available AIP, ACS, AMS, IEEE, APS, Elsevier creating needed mathematics glyphs that will be freely available to users Thousands of code points have been added to Unicode STIXFonts.org has created 3,700 glyphs; about 450 remain to be created (rest were pre-existing)

7 NSDL – Scientific Markup Languages 14 October 2003 University of Illinois at UC Using MathML MathML Is designed to facilitate use of mathematics in Web publishing Serves as lowest common denominator exchange format for computer algebra systems (Mathematica, Maple, …) Has potential as an archiving standard Verbose; not meant for direct human authoring or reading Arguably not as sophisticated for presentation as T E X Applications currently available for rendering, displaying, graphing, and evaluating MathML in Web browser window E.g., Design Science Java applet controls

8 NSDL – Scientific Markup Languages 14 October 2003 University of Illinois at UC Current Status & Open Issues MathML 2.0 is stable, available, & in increasing use, but likely not end Proving useful for many publication & educational applications Simpler to use & share than current alternatives on Web Should be able to maintain backward compatibility Limitations & Needs Good enough to display & manipulate up to college-level math? Still need additional glyphs, character entity definitions May not yet be good enough for computer understanding, e.g., - Comparing MathML expressions for degree of equivalence - Searching by MathML expressions