Editing Complex Equations For Conversion Into HTML?

sakul asks: "I'm working for an online education company, and I'm looking for an easy way to allow teachers to type in equations and math symbols and have them converted into images for display on webpages. These teachers are used to using graphing calculators and they can understand having to write out things like (a^2)/3 but not that LaTex \frac{a^2}{3}. I've looked at that Java Equation editior that WebEq makes, but entering all those equations by hand is really hard, and it only generates MathML, which makes it basically impossible to go back and edit the equations once they've been typed in. I know that other people out there have delt with this problem, but I can't find a soultion anywhere." Perhaps some form of preprocessor can be written that can take an HTML file and expand the equations in one form "(a ^ 2)/3" and convert it on-the-fly into MathML at display time? There are plenty of solutions out there that one could use to pull this off.

Comments

This is a good question, here are some leads ...

[BitMan]

Being out of college now, I don't run into this too much. And my trusty HP 48/49 RPN calculator keeps me from writing too much down when I do. But this is an interesting question that I will probably pursue for you (because I want to do it for myself since I regularly consider switching to teaching). In the meantime, I offer these leads (feel free to contact me directly), although it's NOT a direct answer to your question.

As you mentioned, LaTeX is less than ideal. But even those that do not like LaTeX like LyX. LyX is a WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean) TeX/LaTeX, SGML/DocBook, HTML, etc... editor for UNIX (and Windows if you have an X-Server like eXceed). It can export HTML c/o its integrated (as of v1.1.6) TTH (TeX to HTML) export. TTH produces multiline equations usually in standard HTML. So I guess using LyX and its export, people can generate HTML and cut'n paste the resulting HTML into their text box on your site (or export and cut'n paste LaTeX for that matter). Maybe you can take the LyX/TTH source (which is GPL) and tailor the app.

Another interesting program that I think does NOT have HTML export features (but is interesting none-the-less) is Net Planet Software's THX-1138. NPS has a clean X-Windows C++ framework called JX built right atop of plain'ole Xlib. THX-1138 is a "quickie, but goodie" program written in this framework and is a nice, equation writing features. Although I did not see an HTML export feature, it can export EPS (encapsulated postscript -- a size-efficient vector graphics format for printing) which can be used for conversion to another graphic format -- like a small, vector-based graphic format (so you don't have to worry about size/resolution issues with bitmap graphics).

I'm sure there are many, many other examples, probably ones not so UNIX-focused either (I run Linux 100% of the time -- and support UNIX at work -- sorry). I'll let you know if I find anything else.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith