Math equations on the web

Question

How can I render Math equations on the web? I am already familiar with LaTeX's Math mode.

Answer 1

I've used ASCIIMathML for this in the past. It's essentially a JavaScript library and can use a plugin in IE to optimize performance, but also works without it in IE & Firefox/Mozilla (although a bit slower). The syntax supports a subset of LaTeX, but the differences cause some confusion, so it may confuse your users, depending on where they are coming from.

Here are some links so you can check it out yourself:

• ASCIIMathML
• ASCIIMath Tutorial

Not perfect and doesn't work in all browsers (Safari, etc) but it's something that works today at least, albeit in a somewhat selective subset of the web.

Answer 2

Katex

A couple of developers from the Khan Academy released a blazing quick library based off of Tex called Katex:

• Fast
• High-quality
• Self-contained; and,
• Can be rendered on the server

Looks like a great modern option.

Answer 3

I do render LaTeX formulas "on demand" in my wiki. Basically, I extract the latex code from each wiki section and put it into a .tex file (whose filename is an md5sum of the latex, so if the same code is used again, the same tex and therefore the same image will be used). The tex file is then latex compiled by a cron task every minute, to produce first a .ps, then with the convert program a .png (named again with the original md5). The wiki entry replaces the latex text with an img tag referring to this png (with the original latex code as an alt, for text readers).

If you want to go this way, be very careful to sanitize your latex as much as you can. there are commands in latex, like \input, that you definitely do not want to let go through, as anybody able to use them would be able to include any readable file in your server disk and include it in the resulting latex output.

To solve this issue, Mediawiki (of wikipedia fame) has a special plugin which sanitizes the latex input, but I didn't want to use it for two reasons: first I did not use mediawiki, second it's written in OCaml and I didn't want to mess with a language I don't know.

Answer 4

I have the impression that MediaWiki will allow you to enter LaTeX markup (or something similar) and dynamically decide the best way to display it. Currently I think that uses HTML where possible for small expressions and images for more complicated expressions that cannot be represented otherwise; I suspect that one day it may take advantage of whatever other methods become state of the art, i.e., MathML if browsers start supporting it. So I think you might find that if you use MediaWiki as if it were your website engine you'll be forward-compatible with whatever comes in the future.