RE: Formatting mathematics

["Reynolds, Gregg" <greynolds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Have you looked at MathML?  http://www.w3.org/TR/PR-math/

I can't tell from your text how familiar you are with SGML, so I'll go
ahead and make the basic points: it's a big win to encode your document
independent of formatting specifics.  Also, given a DTD, learning to
markup a text in SGML is trivial; TeX/LaTeX, on the other hand, are not
markup but programming languages.  Finally, DSSSL is not only very
powerful and flexible, but (unlike TeX/LaTex, imho) actually fun to use.

In short, even if you go with LaTex, you're better off sticking the
LaTeX code in a DSSSL sheet and marking up your text in SGML.  The extra
effort would be insignificant imho.

A general question for the world at large: is anybody working on a
stylesheet for MathML?  Or extending it?  I'm particularly interested in
using it to encode Z.

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	D. Michael McFarland [SMTP:mcfarlan@xxxxxxxx]
> Sent:	Thursday, March 19, 1998 9:10 PM
> To:	DSSSList@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:	Formatting mathematics
> 
> A colleague and I are writing an engineering text, heavy on figures
> and mathematics.  We have a few sample chapters done in LaTeX, and
> need to decide whether to continue with that or switch to SGML.  My
> co-author is willing to learn to mark up text in either, but not both.
> I'd like to use DocBook so we can generate both HTML and print
> versions.
> 
> My biggest concern is support for mathematics, especially via jadetex.
> Searching the archive turned up a few threads, about a year old, from
> which I gather this is a developing area.  Could someone please bring
> me up to date on the state of the art?
> 
> My apologies if this is a FAQ, or one of those topics that simply
> annoy people. :-)  I've had bad luck with the latter lately.
> 
> -- Michael
> 
> --
>     D. Michael McFarland   <mcfarlan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>     Vice President, Strategic Technologies Incorporated
>     http://www.creativedestruction.com/
> 
> 
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