MathML Tutorial: Practical Scientific and Technical Publishing Using MathML
Douglas Lovell
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Abstract
This four-hour, hands-on tutorial provides a practical introduction to the evolving W3C Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) 2.0 working draft. The objective of the course is to provide an understanding of the role and utility of the standard, to successfully write W3C MathML documents, and to efficiently navigate the available documentation and resources. An overview of applications for rendering, computing, and authoring MathML will be provided.
Participants will use a range of editors to mark up example math expressions using MathML content and MathML presentation elements. They will use one or more MathML-capable browsers to view the results. The examples will cover the major components of MathML markup. Participants will learn which elements to use for what purpose and how to properly nest elements to achieve desired results. In the end, we will provide an overview on how to enliven mathematical expressions as we build an example interactive, web-based course module.
The tutorial is intended for those who are new or novice or only slightly familiar with MathML. It will provide fundamental background and some practical markup experience that will be helpful for understanding presentations at the conference.
Biography
Douglas Lovell is an advisory programmer with the Advanced Internet Publishing group of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York, which develops and publishes the IBM techexplorer Hypermedia Browser. Before joining IBM in 1995, Doug worked for two years at the electronic magazine layout facility of Time Inc. and for six years as a programmer with an engineering firm and a vendor of prepress hardware and software. At IBM he has worked on interactive markup applications, especially XML. He possibly has claim to the most commercial use of the TeX typesetting language, which he used to typeset automobile loan contracts for the Automobile Loan Exchange project. He has participated in projects over the past two years involving XML, XSLT, XSL formatting objects, and MathML. He was a primary member of the teams that produced XML Generator, XSL Editor, and XSL Trace programs distributed at IBM alphaWorks.