RE: Formula

Thanks Liddy,

I am exploring different options in presenting mathematical formula. 

One of them, like you've suggested, is MathML. But as far as I know
MathML is not supported by IE (yet). Plug-in is an alternative, but some
IE users may have problems with it (for example they may not have
privilege to install plug-in, support issue, etc). 

Another method that I can think of is to create the formula as a graphic
and apply the alternate text. It works fine for simple formula, but the
challenge is on complex formula.

I did not think of using a combination of graphic and MathML as you've
suggested. I will check this method. But I guess it will come to the
same issue on using plug-in on IE....


Thanks and regards,
Budy

-----Original Message-----
From: Liddy Nevile [mailto:liddy@sunriseresearch.org] 
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 5:19 PM
To: Matthew Smith
Cc: Budy Harnata; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Formula

Budy

I'd like to encourage you to use MathML - it is the best way to present 
this information in an unambiguous format ...and anyone who needs the 
formula will probably be pleased to get it that way!  I suggest what 
you could do is leave your image , if necessary, and provide an 
alternative written in MathML as a long description?? In fact MathML is 
reasonably nice to read (if you are a mathematician) and better, I 
think, than a loose language description...

Problem with MathML at this stage is that it does need style sheets and 
to be contained in well-formed XML .... and is not understood by all 
user agents etc...

To make the mathML, you can download some free tools and to see it you 
may need some plug-ins - pretty messy - so depends on your audience 
whether it is worth it???

Liddy

Received on Thursday, 27 January 2005 10:10:40 UTC