The Cover Pages [画像:The OASIS Cover Pages: The Online Resource for Markup Language Technologies]
SEARCH | ABOUT | INDEX | NEWS | CORE STANDARDS | TECHNOLOGY REPORTS | EVENTS | LIBRARY
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML)

Contents:

Mathematics is an essential aspect of scientific communication and education. Therefore, to realize the potential of the Web for science, it must be possible to use mathematics on the Web. Mathematical expressions must move seamlessly between the Web and a wide range of related environments including authoring tools and content management systems, XML-based publishing work flows, e-learning environments, and scientific computing software.

To address this need, W3C brought together key players and major stake holders to devise a solution. The Math Working Group created the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML), a highly-structured, information-rich, XML encoding for mathematical expressions, and is chartered to maintain it.

MathML facilitates the authoring and presentation of mathematical expressions in print and on the screen, and forms the basis for machine to machine communication of mathematics on the Web. Designed as an XML application, MathML provides two sets of tags, one for the presentation of mathematics and the other associated with the meaning behind equations. MathML is not designed for people to enter by hand; specialized tools provide the means for typing in and editing mathematical expressions.

The Math WG has been working on several drafts besides MathML 3.0, including a subset of MathML that can be rendered on any browser that supports CSS, and an alternative syntax that might be used for entering MathML in wikis.

The Math WG works together with the CSS WG, the CDF WG and the HTML WG on a common framework for compound documents that supports typographically correct mathematics. MathML is fully integrated with XHTML and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), and interoperates well with other W3C technologies such as XSL (the Extensible Stylesheet Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and XML Schema. [Activity Statement 2007-04]

Publication Milestones

[April 27, 2007] First W3C Working Draft for Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0." The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced the publication of a First Public Working Draft for MathML which specifies a new version of the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML 3.0), at present under active development. The Working Group was re-chartered to enhance MathML to better support internationalization of mathematics, accessibility, semantic encoding of mathematics, Unicode alignment, and precise control of rendering for print publishing. MathML is an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. According to the specification abstract, MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation and mathematical content. About thirty-five (35) 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.

[August 26, 2000] "MathML is intended to facilitate the use and re-use of mathematical and scientific content on the Web, and for other applications such as computer algebra systems, print typesetting, and voice synthesis. MathML can be used to encode both the presentation of mathematical notation for high-quality visual display, and mathematical content, for applications where the semantics plays more of a key role such as scientific software or voice synthesis. MathML is cast as an application of XML. As such, with adequate style sheet support, it will ultimately be possible for browsers to natively render mathematical expressions. For the immediate future, several vendors offer applets and plug-ins which can render MathML in place in a browser. Translators and equation editors which can generate HTML pages where the math expressions are represented directly in MathML will be available soon. MathML consists of a number of XML tags which can be used to mark up an equation in terms of its presentation and also its semantics. MathML attempts to capture something of the meaning behind equations rather than concentrating entirely on how they are going to be formatted out on the screen. This is on the basis that mathematical equations and are meaningful to many applications without regard as to how they are rendered aurally or visually. XML is closely related to HTML and assumes a very similar, but not identical syntax. One distinction is that in XML you cannot omit end tags. Furthermore, tags for elements which don't have any content are specially marked by a slash before the closing angle bracket. MathML is a low-level format for describing mathematics as a basis for machine to machine communication. MathML is not intended for editing by hand, but is for handling by specialized authoring tools such as equation editors, or for export to and from other math packages. MathML is intended to facilitate the use and re-use of mathematical and scientific content on the Web, and for other applications such as computer algebra systems, print typesetters, and voice synthesizers. MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation, for high-quality visual display, and mathematical content, for more semantic applications like scientific software, or voice synthesis. [From the W3C web site, 2000年08月26日]

[April 15, 2003] Last Call Draft for Mathematical Markup Language V2.0 Second Edition. The W3C Math Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 (2nd Edition). MathML is "an XML application that allows mathematical notation and content to be served, received and processed on the Web." MathML Second Edition introduces an XML Schema which supports checking a MathML fragment in a stricter way than by performing DTD validation. The new release also includes an XHTML+MathML version with inline examples, suitable for viewing with a MathML enabled browser. MathML Version 2.0 Second Edition updates the Recommendation of February 21, 2001 by incorporating errata into the main document and providing additional documentation. The W3C Working Group invites comments during the Last Call period, which ends May 09, 2003.

[February 20, 2001] MathML Version 2.0 Published as a W3C Recommendation. The W3C has released the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 specfication as a W3C Recommendation, together with an implementation and interoperability report, several testimonials from implementation teams, and a press release. "MathML 2.0 consists of a number of XML tags which can be used to mark up an equation in terms of its presentation and also its semantics. As a result, MathML 2.0 attempts to capture something of the meaning behind equations rather than concentrating entirely on how they are going to be formatted out on the screen. This is because mathematical equations are meaningful to many applications, independent of how they are rendered aurally or visually. MathML 2.0 is intended to facilitate the use and re-use of mathematical and scientific content on the Web, and for other applications such as computer algebra systems, print typesetting, and voice synthesizers. MathML can be used to encode both the presentation of mathematical notation for high-quality visual display, and mathematical content, for applications where the semantics plays more of a key role such as scientific software or voice synthesis." [Full context]

[January 09, 2000] MathML 2.0 Specification as a Proposed Recommendation. Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 has been released as a W3C Proposed Recommendation. Reference: W3C Proposed Recommendation 08-January-2001, edited by David Carlisle (NAG), Patrick Ion (Mathematical Reviews, American Mathematical Society), Robert Miner (Design Science, Inc.), and Nico Poppelier (Penta Scope). The Proposed Recommendation review period extends through 5-February-2001, after which the specification may become a W3C Recommendation. Document 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. This document begins with background information on mathematical notation, the problems it poses, and the philosophy underlying the solutions MathML proposes. MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation and mathematical content. About thirty of the MathML tags describe abstract notational structures, while another about one hundred and fifty 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 MathML characters and their relation to fonts. While MathML is human-readable, it is anticipated that, in all but the simplest cases, authors will use equation editors, conversion programs, and other specialized software tools to generate MathML. Several early versions of such MathML tools already exist, and a number of others, both freely available software and commercial products, are under development." Major changes: "Chapters 1 and 2, which are introductory material, have been revised to reflect the changes elsewhere in the document, and in the rapidly evolving Web environment. Chapters 3 and 4 have been extended to describe new functionalities added as well as smaller improvements of material already proposed. Chapter 5 has been newly written to reflect changes in the technology available. The major tables in Chapter 6 have been regenerated and reorganized to reflect an improved list of characters useful for mathematics, and the text revised to reflect the new situation in regard to Unicode. Chapter 7 has been completely revised since Web technology has changed. A new Chapter 8 on the DOM for MathML has been added; the latter points to new appendices D and E for detailed listings. The appendices have been reorganized into normative and non-normative groups. Appendices D (Document Object Model for MathML), E (MathML Document Object Model Bindings), and G (Sample CSS Style Sheet for MathML) are completely new." See further information in (1) the public mailing list archives, (2) the W3C MathML website, (3) the Zvon MathML reference.

[November 13, 2000] MathML 2.0 W3C Candidate Recommendation. As part of the W3C User Interface Domain activity, the W3C Math Working Group has produced a Candidate Recommendation specification for Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 . Reference: W3C Candidate Recommendation 13-November-2000, edited by David Carlisle (NAG), Patrick Ion (Mathematical Reviews, American Mathematical Society), Robert Miner (Design Science, Inc.), and Nico Poppelier (Penta Scope). Document 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." Available also as HTML zip archive, XHTML zip archive, XML zip archive, PDF (screen), PDF (paper).

[March 29, 2000] The W3C Math Working Group has published a 'last call' Working Draft of the MathML 2.0 specification: Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 . Reference: W3C Working Draft 28-March-2000; edited by Nico Poppelier (Penta Scope), Robert Miner (Geometry Technologies, Inc.), Patrick Ion (Mathematical Reviews, American Mathematical Society), and David Carlisle (NAG). The last call review period ends 30-April-2000. The document has been produced as part of the activity of the W3C User Interface Domain. It is available also in these formats: HTML zip archive, XHTML zip archive, XML zip archive, PDF (screen), and PDF (paper). The working draft 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. [It] 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... document begins with background information on mathematical notation, the problems it poses, and the philosophy underlying the solutions MathML proposes. MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation and mathematical content. About thirty of the MathML tags describe abstract notational structures, while another one hundred 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 MathML characters and their relation to fonts. While MathML is human-readable, it is anticipated that, in all but the simplest cases, that authors will use equation editors, conversion programs, and other specialized software tools to generate MathML. Several early versions of such MathML tools already exist, and a number of others, both freely available software and commercial products, are under development." Appendix A of the document supplies the main body of the XML DTD; the full DTD, as well as the XHTML-Math DTD, is available also as a separate file.

[February 24, 1998] MathML (Mathematical Markup Language) specification issued by W3C as a Proposed Recommendation. Editors: Patrick Ion and Robert Miner. Reference: PR-math-19980224. Abstract: "MathML is a low-level syntax for representing structured data such as mathematics in machine-to-machine communication over the Web, providing a much-needed solution for including mathematical expressions over the Web. In developing MathML, the goal was to define an XML-compliant markup language that describes the content and presentation of mathematical expressions. This was achieved with MathML. As an effective way to include mathematical expressions in Web documents, MathML gives control over the presentation and the meaning of such expressions. It does this by providing two sets of markup tags: one set presents the notation of mathematical data in markup format, and the other set relays the semantic meaning of mathematical expressions, enabling complex mathematical and scientific notation to be encoded in an explicit way. As an XML application, MathML capitalizes on XML features and benefits from the wide support of XML. Unlike HTML which was intended as a markup language for use by people, MathML is intended to be used by machines, facilitating the searching and indexing of mathematical and scientific information. Software tools that work with MathML render MathML into formatted equations, enabling users to edit mathematical equations much as one might edit HTML text. Several early versions of such MathML tools already exist, and a number of others, both freely available software and commercial products, are under development." See the press release.

Principal References

General: Articles, News, Software

SEARCH
Advanced Search
ABOUT
Site Map
CP RSS Channel
Contact Us
Sponsoring CP
About Our Sponsors

NEWS
Cover Stories
Articles & Papers
Press Releases

CORE STANDARDS
XML
SGML
Schemas
XSL/XSLT/XPath
XLink
XML Query
CSS
SVG

TECHNOLOGY REPORTS
XML Applications
General Apps
Government Apps
Academic Apps

EVENTS
LIBRARY
Introductions
FAQs
Bibliography
Technology and Society
Semantics
Tech Topics
Software
Related Standards
Historic
Last modified: April 27, 2007

Hosted By
OASIS - Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards

Sponsored By

IBM Corporation
ISIS Papyrus
Microsoft Corporation
Oracle Corporation

Primeton

XML Daily Newslink
Receive daily news updates from Managing Editor, Robin Cover.

Newsletter Subscription
Newsletter Archives
[画像:Globe Image]

Document URI: http://xml.coverpages.org/mathML.htmlLegal stuff
Robin Cover, Editor: robin@oasis-open.org


AltStyle によって変換されたページ (->オリジナル) /