RE: Typesetting for print

Hello Wendell,

Whether you chose one system on another to produce the PDF from XML, there
is no reason why formulas should not look with proper quality. It is a
matter of correctly placing the characters and embedding the font
typesetting inside the PDF. The point is having a quality MathML render
engine.

Another important aspect to consider is that the MathML editor chosen should
be aligned with the render engine. I suggest you check our solutions at
www.wiris.com/editor

Dani
CTO at Maths for More

-----Original Message-----
From: Wendell P [mailto:wendellp@operamail.com]
Sent: miércoles, 18 de enero de 2012 4:55
To: www-math@w3.org
Subject: Typesetting for print

Although I didn't see any past discussion of print typography here, there
doesn't seem to be any place else to bring this up.

I would like to produce mathematical documents in an entirely XML workflow.
There are WYSIWYG editors that render SVG and MathML, several good utilities
for generating SVG illustrations, equation editors that i/o MathML, and
typsetting engines that take XML+SVG+MathML input.

My main problem is that I have been unable to get sufficient quality in the
typesetting of equations. I would prefer quality like TeX, but would be
satisfied with that of MS Word 2007. OpenOffice is definitely not good
enough.

I'm hoping to get some discussion here on what is available and how to make
best use of it.

The two commercial engines I've tried are Antenna House Formatter and Prince
XML. I was satisfied with both except for the equations. Why is equation
layout not better? Is it just a case of not putting enough work into
rendering equations, or is it actually harder to develop rendering rules for
MathML than for LaTeX? Maybe the capability is there but it takes a deeper
knowledge of the system. I looked but couldn't find any discussion along
those lines.

There are also the really expensive systems like Arbortext APP and SDL's XML
Professional Publisher. Do the big systems really render MathML with
TeX-like quality? Not that I could afford them, but I'd like to know if what
I want is even possible.

What else should I consider? I just want to output typeset PDFs from
XHTML/HTML5+SVG+MathML files. I have even tried "Print to PDF" in Firefox.
The equations were actually not too bad, but I doubt that any amount of
fiddling could produce production quality documents.

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Received on Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:01:02 UTC