[Tex/LaTex] Creating mathjax-style documents

htmllatex2htmlmathjaxmathml

Is there any software, website, etc. that renders a document as if MathJax were being used, but in such a way that the output can be read by someone who is not using MathJax? (Perhaps the equations and notation could be inserted as png images.) I'm not sure what format the output document should be; perhaps html, or rtf in the unlikely event that that is possible. Here are my motivations:

  1. It's all very well to use GmailTeX to apply MathJax to emails I am reading or writing, but sometimes I send emails to people whom I know do not use this feature. I would like to be able to send them emails that I know they can read, without having to attach a pdf or include images by hand.
  2. LaTeX has a fairly steep learning curve. It would be nice to have a way for students who want to communicate math by computer to concentrate only on typing the math, without having to learn about non-WYSIWYG typesetting, compiling, etc.

Chances are, what I am asking for is impossible without a revision of web standards or some such. But if there are any options that do anything like this, I would like to know about them.

Best Answer

Actually, what you ask for doesn't need a revision of the web standards. What you need is better implementation of the existing standards. MathML is the web standard for communicating mathematics. However, it is not universally supported (Firefox is good, IE works with a plugin, other browsers are ... not so good). Indeed, MathJaX is a bridge allowing MathML on browsers that don't support it.

For generating it, take a look at the list of converters on the w3 webpages. Tex4HT is The Big One for converting TeX documents. I recommend itextomml for shorter maths segments (it's what is used on the nlab, for example).