MathML
The Dictionary contains a large amount of mathematical equations. These equations are represented as MathML. The website can deliver the content as MathML direct to your browser, or transformed to images.
Direct MathML delivery has the following advantages:
- Inline maths will align correctly with text
- Maths will scale correctly with the browser font size
- Delivering the MathML source allows possible accessibility tools to be used. For example, MathPlayer can speak the MathML content.
Accessibility of MathML is covered in the Accessibility help page.
1. MathML options
For your convenience, we have special pages that allow you to choose whether to get MathML or images or Test your browser's MathML support
2. Recommended browsers
Our recommended browsers support MathML display:
- FireFox 2 fully supports MathML display when mathematical fonts have been installed.
- Internet Explorer 7 can be extended to display MathML using the MathPlayer plugin.
See Browser recommendation for further details.
2.1 FireFox 2 with Math fonts
MathML displays natively in recent versions of FireFox. FireFox does recommend that some extra fonts are installed for full MathML support, and this is the recommended configuration. The vast majority of MathML in the dictionary will display in FireFox without any additional fonts.
The instructions for setting up FireFox are on the Browsers help page.
2.2 Internet Explorer 7 with MathPlayer plugin
Internet Explorer is supported using the MathPlayer plugin.
MathPlayer is available for Internet Explorer versions 6 and above, however version 7 is the target platform for this site and the visual appearance of the site is optimised in Internet Explorer 7.
The instructions for setting up Internet Explorer are on the Browsers help page.
3 Other browsers
If you are using another browser, please use the MathML test page to check your browser support and if needed, use the MathML preference form to choose to recieve MathML content.
3.1 Internet Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 6 supports MathPlayer. Go to www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/ and follow the instructions to download and install MathPlayer then use the MathML test page to check the display.
3.2 Internet Explorer 5 and below
Unfortunately, MathPlayer does not work below version 6 of Internet Explorer (IE). If you have an earlier version than 6, we recommend you update to IE 7. If you can't update to IE 6 or 7, please don't install MathPlayer as this will break some of the MathML. If you do have MathPlayer installed with an older version of IE and can't update IE, please use the MathML preferences page to choose Images rather than MathML.
Earlier versions of FireFox
FireFox has supported MathML for some time. If you do have an early version and can't update, use the MathML preference to select Images if you encounter problems with MathML.
3.3 Opera
At the time of writing (Feb 2008), experimental versions of Opera are available with MathML support. If you have Opera, MathML is not delivered automatically by this site. If the MathML on the MathML test page displays correctly, you can use the MathML preference to choose to receive MathML instead of Images.
For some versions of Opera without native MathML support, you may be able to use the user javascript file from http://xml-maiden.com/userjs/mathml/. This is not a supported solution. If the MathML on the MathML test page displays correctly, you can use the MathML preference to choose to receive MathML instead of Images.
3.4 Safari
Safari does not support MathML and mathmatical content will be delivered as Images. We are not aware of any ways to make MathML display in Safari at this time, however if you use one and the MathML on the MathML test page displays correctly, you can use the MathML preference to choose to receive MathML instead of Images.
