>
> Quite so. Hence my lack of enthusiasm when malcolm suggested acrobat as
> a solution to lack of HTML math support. Plus, anyone who has seen parallel
> HTML and PDF versions of the same document will appreciate the enormous
> difference in file sizes.
i think that my hope was that with the link up
of netscape and adobe we would have a small window
like a present <IMG> which would contain the math fragment
then much less has to be shipped around.
>
> > The issue will be the extent to which the structure of an equation is
> > described in a way that makes sense to tools that read html --- provided
> > equations have enough structure that one would want to do the sorts of
> > things one might do with other structural information in html.
>
> Phill Hallam-Baker of W3C spoke to me last year about math support in HTML 3
> and the intention at that time was *not* to replicate TeX/LaTeX, which merely
> describe pictures of equations. He wanted to describe the equation; so there
> was enough info there to drop in intio say a symbolic algebra package or a
> graphing program. That does not seem to have happened.
>
indeed. (merely indeed!) in fact hyperdvi does more than this
and has linking within and between documents. see, for
example the los alamos e-print archive. exploiting, inter
alia, latex's mere cross referencing mechanism).
i note that
mathcad is touting a new version which incorporates a
browser (if i read their advertising bumph aright).
if html3 merely managed to describe pictures of equations, it
would be doing much more than the draft indicates. if it simply
replicates tex/latex, it would enable tens of thousands of
documents to be effortlessly incorporated, and save thousands
of people from having to learn another (inadequate) notation.
malcolm clark tel: (+44) 01203 523365
computing services fax: (+44) 01203 523267
university of warwick url: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~cudax/egotrip.html
coventry, cv4 7al, uk email: m.clark@warwick.ac.uk
"none but ourselves can free our minds" r.marley