Re: LaTeX, HTML and XML

"Russell Hill" <rah111@bigpond.net.au> writes:

> I have attached a simple LaTeX screen dump which creates a .ps showing the
> quadratic formula.

Unfortunately I can't view your document which appears to be Microsoft
Word. I take it your document shows some formula produced using LaTeX.

> I am familiar with the basics of HTML but don't how to incorporate nice math
> content.
>
> I know nothing about XML and don't quite understand where to begin with it.

Read "XML in 10 points" at http://www.w3.org/XML/1999/XML-in-10-points
which explains in particular the relationship between XML, HTML and XHTML.

That'll make it easier to understand what MathML is: MathML is, like
XHTML, a language that is an instance of XML, whose purpose is to
encode mathematical equations for the Web.
http://www.w3.org/Math/whatIsMathML.html will

> 3. Are HTML files "replaced" by XML files? ie. Are there web pages that use
> *.xml extensions?

As explained in "XML in 10 points", XML is not on the same level as
HTML.  XML is a meta-language, from which are defined languages such
as XHTML, MathML, SVG and many others. Just as SGML was a
meta-language from which HTML was designed.

HTML is far from being replaced on the web. However we see more and
more XHTML pages, and that is a good thing.

> 4. Or are the web pages still *.html but with XML employed within
> the *.html document somehow?

The extension does not say much in this case. A *.html file could be
HTML, or XHTML, or XHTML containing MathML. What you are likely to see
is XHTML documents including MathML markup. An simple instance of which is:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html" />
    <title>Example</title>
  </head>

  <body>
    <h1>XHTML+MathML example</h1>

    <p>This is a paragraph in XHTML markup. A formula in MathML follows</p>

    <p>
      <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
        <msup>
          <msqrt>
            <mrow>
              <mi>a</mi>
              <mo>+</mo>
              <mi>b</mi>
            </mrow>
          </msqrt>
          <mn>27</mn>
        </msup>
      </math>
    </p>
  </body>
</html>

Hope this helps,

Max.

Received on Thursday, 4 April 2002 08:42:36 UTC