Traction for MathML?
August 18, 2004
Seybold does not have a concentration of XML vendors, but one area where there is quite a bit of activity is in Math typesetting and conversion. MathML seems to be gaining ground, and one company, Design Sciences, really seems to be taking over. As some of you know, they provide the math editor in Microsoft Word, MathType, and are also the math editor in ArborText Epic and XMetal. They have announced, but are not yet shipping, MathType editors for Quark and InDesign.
One cool thing they provide is a free MathML "player" for Internet Explorer.
It displays MathML in the browser, and it also has an accessibility feature that "speaks" the equation. The text to speech will not blow you away, but it is a first version which was partially funded by the National Science Foundation, and they are still working on it. The text-to-speech work in the electronic version of the American Heritage Dictionary, as one example, is much better, but it's interesting to see it done with mathematics.
Design Sciences also has a new product offering, MathFlow, which manages the workflow and conversion of math from Word to desktop publishing formats.
Posted by Bill Trippe at August 18, 2004 11:22 AM
