Math Type

 Math Type Great software

 

MathType System Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 2000, XP, Vista
Office Versions: Does not require Microsoft Office or Microsoft Word. However, it adds a Math Type ribbon to Word and PowerPoint 2007, and a Math Type toolbar and menu to Word 2003, 2002 (XP) and 2000.
Memory Requirements: Not RAM-intensive
Storage Requirements: 10MB
Minimum Processor: Pentium processor or equivalent


http://www.4shared.com/zip/tgZpI_BJ/projectreport.html

Using Math Type to Create TEX and MathML Equations

MathType 4.0 is the latest release of Design Science's interactive mathematical
equation editing software package, the full-featured version of the Equation Editor
applet that comes with Microsoft Word. Its completely re-architected translation
system should be of particular interest to the TEX and MathML communities.
MathType can be used as an aid to learning TEX, as a simpler interface for en-
tering equations into a TEX authoring system, or as part of a document conversion
scheme for journal and book publishers.
After the introduction, a simple translation example is given to show how
its Translator De nition Language (TDL) is used to convert a MathType equa-
tion to TEX. This is followed by an introduction to MathML and MathType's
MathML translators are discussed. Finally, some of the possibilities for creating
translators for special purposes is mentioned, along with discussion on how Math-
Type's translation facilities can be used as component of a more comprehensive
document conversion process.
Introduction
MathType is an interactive tool for authoring math-
ematical material. It runs on Microsoft Windows
and Apple Macintosh systems (a Linux implemen-
tation is under consideration). Readers may also
be familiar with MathType's junior version, Equa-
tion Editor, as it is supplied as part of many personal
computer software products, such as MicrosoftWord
and Corel WordPerfect.
Unlike TEX, MathType does not process entire
documents. Rather, it is used in conjunction with
other products, such as word processors, page layout
programs, presentation programs, web/HTML edi-
tors, spreadsheets, graphing software, and virtually
any other kind of application that allows insertion
of a graphical object into its documents. MathType
equations can even be inserted into database elds
with most modern database systems!
MathType has a simple but powerful direct-
manipulation interface for creating standard math-
ematical notation. Instead of entering a computer
language, such as TEX, the MathType user combines
simple typing with the insertion of \templates". For
example, inserting a fraction template results in a
fraction bar with empty slots above and below for
Figure 1: The MathType Window
the numerator and denominator. The contents of
each slot are lled in by the user by more typing
and inserting of templates. The displayed equation
is reformatted as the user types and spacing is added
automatically (although spacing may be explicitly
overridden). Some nd this interface to be simpler
than direct TEX input as there are no keywords to
184 TUGboat, Volume 20 (1999), No. 3|Proceedings of the 1999 Annual Meeting
Using MathType to Create TEX and MathML Equations
remember and, most importantly, no possibility of
syntax errors.
One common complaint heard from TEX users
upon rst seeing MathType's user interface is that
one must use the mouse for everything. Whereas
mouse support is an important part of MathType's
user interface (as with virtually all Windows and
Mac applications), MathType 4.0 has keyboardmeth-
ods for performing all of its commands. Also, users
may assign keystrokes to commands in any kind of
mnemonic scheme they care to invent. The ability to
assign a keystroke to an arbitrary math expression
is analogous to TEX's macro facility.
Although a thorough examination of MathType
is beyond the scope of this paper, here are some of
its most important features:
Any national language characters that the host
operating system allows may be inserted into
math, including Asian characters.
MathType's internal representation of charac-
ters is Unicode,1 extended via its Private Use
area to cover more of the characters that ap-
pear in mathematical notation. We call this
MTCode. A user-extendable database of math
font-to-MTCode mappings is used to relate char-
acters entered to knowledge used in line format-
ting, as well as translation.
A basic set of mathematical fonts (Roman,
Greek, italics, Fraktur, blackboard bold, and
many mathematical symbols) is included. Math-
Type can also make use of any PostScript Type 1
or TrueType font available via the operating
system.
MathType also includes a translation system for
converting mathematics entered in its editing
window to virtually any text-based language.
This translation system is the chief subject of
this paper. In particular, it includes translators
for several flavors of TEX and MathML.
MathType's translation facilities
MathType has had a TEX translator for many years
that allows the user to copy all or part of an ex-
pression onto the clipboard in the TEX language,
ready to be pasted into a document. However, un-
til version 4.0, it had two important limitations: it
could only generate plain TEX and the user had no
control over the TEX fragments generated for par-
ticular symbols and templates. MathType 4.0 fea-
tures a complete re-design of the translator mecha-
nism. The translation of a MathType expression is
1 Unicode is a standard for encoding characters. See www.
unicode.org for information.
controlled by a translator de nition le, a text le
containing a simple translation rule language that
allows a fragment of the target language to be asso-
ciated with each of MathType's many symbols and
templates. Although the chief motivation for its de-
velopment was TEX translation, it can also be used
to convert MathType equations to other languages,
such as MathML and those speci ed by the math
parts of various SGML-based document languages.
MathType is supplied with translator de nition
les for plain TEX, AMS-TEX, LATEX, AMS-LATEX,
and four MathML variations. These can be cus-
tomized for speci c applications or translators for
other mathematical languages can be written by start-
ing from scratch. Also, commands are available in
Microsoft Word that will allow a Word document
containing MathType (or Equation Editor) equations
to be converted to TEX or any other language sup-
ported by a translator. MathType's translation fa-
cilities can be used as an aid to learning TEX, as a
simpler interface for entering equations into a TEX
authoring system, or as part of a document conver-
sion scheme for journal and book publishers.
The MTCode character encoding
Although the designers of Unicode have attempted
to include many mathematical characters, their at-
tempt falls somewhat short. In fairness to them,
incorporating all the characters of the many natu-
ral languages in use in the world must have been an
overwhelming task.
There is an attempt by some in the mathemat-
ical community to get the Unicode Consortium to
add the missing mathematical characters to a future
version of Unicode. If and when they are successful,
we will probably adopt it to replace MTCode.
MathType uses each character's MTCode value
as a key into a database of character information
that, for each character, includes a human-readable
description, an indicator of its role in mathematical
notation (e.g. variable, binary operator), and infor-
mation used in the process of choosing an appropri-
ate font to render it on screen and printer. Most
importantly, a character's MTCode value is an in-
dex into tables of translation strings in MathType's
translation system.
We will use the terms MTCode and Unicode
interchangeably in the remainder of this paper.
TUGboat, Volume 20 (1999), No. 3|Proceedings of the 1999 Annual Meeting 185
Paul Topping
The translation system from a user's
perspective
The basic scenario for using MathType to aid in the
creation of a TEX document is to run it simultane-
ously with your favorite TEX editor. The process is
this:
whenever an equation is needed, the MathType
window is brought to the front;
the equation is created in the MathType win-
dow;
the equation is selected and copied to the clip-
board, a process which invokes the previously
selected translator;
the TEX editor is brought to the front;
the TEX code for the equation is pasted into the
document.
Editing to correct mistakes is performed by re-
versing this process, pasting the TEX code (along
with a comment containing a compressed form of
MathType's internal representation) back into a
MathType window, and then repeating the above
process once the corrections have been made.
At the beginning of such a document creation
and editing session, the user must select one of Math-
Type's translators. This is done via the Translators
dialog, which presents a list of all the translators
present on the user's system in the MathType trans-
lators directory (Fig. 2).
Figure 2: The Translators dialog
Anatomy of a translator
Each translator is de ned by a text le written in
a simple language called TDL (Translator De nition
Language). A translator has a simple structure:
The rst line de nes the short name for the
translator which appears in the list presented
to the user in the Translators dialog (see Fig. 2)
and a longer description which appears in the
dialog once the translator is chosen from the
list. The description might include the author's
name and a liation as well as the version num-
ber of the translator.
a set of matching rules of the form
hthing to matchi = htranslation stringi ;
MathType equations (just like TEX ones) are
represented internally as a tree. Let's take the fol-
lowing equation as an example:
y = a + b
c
MathType sees this equation as:
eqn (root)
slot (main)
character (y)
character (=)
template (fraction)
slot (numerator)
character (a)
character (+)
character (b)
slot (denominator)
character (c)
The translation process begins by applying the
display equation rule,2 to the root of the MathType
expression:
eqn = "\[@n#@n\]@n"; // display equation
The characters between quotation marks are pro-
cessed from left to right. Most of the characters in
the eqn rule are simply placed in the output trans-
lation stream. The @n sequence outputs a newline.
The @ character, called the escape character, is used
to insert special characters into the output stream.
The default escape character is $, but is rede ned
in the TEX translators to @ for convenience.
The # in the eqn rule causes the translator to
look for a rule that will be used to translate the
equation's main slot. After applying this transla-
tion (we'll get to that next) and inserting its output
into the translation stream, the rest of the eqn trans-
lation string is output and the translation process is
complete.
Let's go back to see how the # in the eqn rule
is processed. This is done with the rule:
slot/t = "#";
This rule works just like the eqn rule but is even
simpler. The /t option is used to signal that this
2 The translation rules used in our example are simpli ed
somewhat for the purpose of this paper.
186 TUGboat, Volume 20 (1999), No. 3|Proceedings of the 1999 Annual Meeting
Using MathType to Create TEX and MathML Equations
rule is to be used for the top-most slot in the equa-
tion only. Other slot rules enclose the translation
of their contents in fg, the TEX notation for group-
ing. Now, each item in the main slot is processed.
The rules for y and = are also very simple:
char/0x0079 = "y"; // Latin small letter y
char/0x003D = " = "; // Equals sign
Here is where Unicode comes into play. MathType
knows the Unicode value for y is 79 (in hexadecimal
notation). It uses this knowledge to nd the char
rule that speci es how y is to be translated.
The fraction is handled by a template rule:
frac = "\frac{#1}{#2}"; // fraction
The #s in this rule are followed by numerals that
specify the slot's index in the template; 1 for the
numerator, 2 for the denominator. These two slots
are processed much like the main slot, except they
use the more general slot rule:
slot = "{#}";
So, the complete translation of our simple ex-
ample is:
\[
y = \frac{a+b}{c}
\]
MathML
The MathML speci cation was written by the W3C
Math Working Group.3 In April 1998, it was raised
to Recommendation status by the W3C. MathML
has as its main goals:
encode mathematical material suitable for teach-
ing and scienti c communication at all levels
encode both mathematical notation and math-
ematical meaning
MathML is intended to be used to both present math-
ematical notation and to serve as as a medium of
exchange between scienti c and mathematical soft-
ware. Toward that end, MathML de nes a set of
XML elements and attributes (together called mark-
up) that fall into two categories: presentation mark-
up and content markup. Presentation markup is in-
tended to describe mathematical expressions from a
two-dimensional layout point of view, whereas con-
tent markup is intended to capture the meaning of
the mathematics.
MathType provides four MathML translators
(why there are four will be explained shortly) that
3 See http://www.w3.org/Math/ for the speci cation and
other information on MathML.
can convert its equations into MathML's presenta-
tion markup. For example, translating the following
expression into MathML:
−b pb2 − 4ac
2a
results in:
<math displaystyle='true'>
<mrow>
<mfrac>
<mrow>
<mo>-</mo>
<mi>b</mi><mo>&PlusMinus;</mo>
<msqrt>
<mrow>
<msup>
<mi>b</mi>
<mn>2</mn>
</msup>
<mo>-</mo>
<mn>4</mn><mi>a</mi><mi>c</mi>
</mrow>
</msqrt>
</mrow>
<mrow>
<mn>2</mn><mi>a</mi>
</mrow>
</mfrac>
</mrow>
</math>
The rst reaction of most TEX users is a gasp
at how verbose MathML is. Please bear in mind
that MathML is not intended to be authored directly
by humans but with tools like MathType. MathML
inherits its verbosity from XML. This \disadvan-
tage" is far outweighed by the advantages gained
with XML structure with its support in browsers,
editors, and other tools. In the future, we hope
to see MathML become the language of choice for
exchanging mathematics between mathematical ap-
plications. Its eventual integration with browsers
should make it tremendously useful in teaching.
Unfortunately, it may be a little while before
MathML achieves its promise. Until we are able to
properly display MathML in the popular browsers,
such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's
Navigator, we will have to rely on various browser
\plug-ins", such as IBM's techexplorer.4 and Geome-
try Technologies'WebEQ.5 These work but are con-
strained by various font issues, sizing problems, and
lack baseline alignment for in-line math. The W3C's
4 For information, see http://www.software.ibm.com/
network/techexplorer/.
5 See http://www.webeq.com/.
TUGboat, Volume 20 (1999), No. 3|Proceedings of the 1999 Annual Meeting 187
Paul Topping
Math Working Group has made browser integration
one of its highest priorities.
In order to work with the various MathML
browser plug-ins, we have had to create several ver-
sions of our MathML translator, one for each. They
di er only in the \wrapper" code they place around
the generated MathML in order to invoke the
plug-in and pass the MathML code to it. When true
browser integration is possible, we will only need a
single MathML translator.
Experimenting with MathType's translators
Because of their simple and open structure, Math-
Type's translators can be easily modi ed or new ones
written from scratch. Some possibilities include:
creating a new translator for the mathematics
portion of an SGML document standard (DTD)
changing an existing TEX translator to make
use of some macro package or the author's own
preferred macros
using the Unicode capability of MathType's
translators to take advantage of the various TEX
adaptations for non-Ennglish languages
Document conversion
MathType's translation facilities can also be incor-
porated into the process of converting entire docu-
ments to TEX or any other language supported by
one of its translators. MathType has a programmatic
interface beside its more familiar graphical user in-
terface. This interface is via functions in a Windows
DLL (Dynamically Linked Library). As MathType is
often used with Microsoft Word, we have provided
functionality that can be accessed using commands
on a \MathType" menu within theWord application
itself. One of these is a Convert Equations command
that can be used to convert all the MathType and
Equation Editor equations in a document to any one
of the languages for which a MathType translator is
available. Although this does not result in a fully
translated Word document, the most di cult part,
converting equations, has been achieved.
MathType's Word support is written in that
product's Visual Basic language. The source code is
accessible and may be used as the basis for your own
conversion scheme.
Conclusions
MathType 4.0, with its new translation features, can
be used in a variety of ways:
as an interactive front-end to TEX authoring
as an aid to learning TEX
to experiment with the new MathML standard
with the development of custom translators, it
can be used to generate virtually any text-based
math language
It is our hope that TEX users will want to add it to
their arsenal of useful tools.
TEX musings
Musings from the Bard
Oh, what a tangled web is TEX,
or so it seems at the outset;
for highest quality, the best to look,
Oh why did I choose to typeset my own book!
. . .
For Macintosh users the skies are quite blue,
with Barry to help you and Ben Salzburg too.
With Art, Ross, and Uwe ready to assist,
just send a short email to Gary Gray's (Textures)
list.
. . .
If shareware type software is more to your taste,
your super-fast Power-Mac need not go to waste.
There's CMac- and Direct-TEX to lessen the sorrow,
and that great program OzTEX, by Andrew Trevor-
row