Eliot Kimber - Math ML with MathType, Word, DITA and FOP; soapconf 2014

Word, MathType, DITA, MathML, and FOP

Doing Math With DITA and Word

10/27/2014 Contrext, LLC 1

Presenter

Presentation Notes

The materials are available here:��http://github.com/drmacro/conference_papers/tree/master/soap-2014-mathml-and-word

About the Author • Independent consultant focusing on DITA

analysis, design, and implementation • Doing SGML and XML for cough 30 years cough • Founding member of the DITA Technical

Committee • Founding member of the XML Working Group • Co-editor of HyTime standard (ISO/IEC 10744) • Primary developer and founder of the DITA for

Publishers project • Author of DITA for Practitioners, Vol 1 (XML Press)


Agenda

• The challenge: authoring math and publishing using DITA

• Demonstration

• The tools

• The process


Executive Summary • DITA 1.3 integrates MathML out of the box • FOP and Antenna House XSL Formatter both

support MathML rendering • MathType for Word is a low-cost equation editor

that supports MathML • The DITA for Publishers Word-to-DITA framework

supports getting MathML from Word • All together it means low-cost, high-quality math

publishing with DITA


THE CHALLENGE: AUTHORING MATH AND PUBLISHING USING DITA


Use Case: Authoring in Word, Generating DITA

• Authors use Microsoft Word to author the content: – Academic papers

– Technical standards

– Technical documentation with math

• Convert the Word to DITA using the DITA for Publishers Word-to-DITA framework

• Need to get MathML equations from authors


Math is Hard

• Many ways to author math

• MathML is the only XML standard for math

• MathML not practical to author directly: requires an authoring tool of some sort

• For XML use need a way to get MathML from authors along with the XML


Rendering MathML

• Requires MathML-aware tools

• May be production quality issues depending on the renderer chosen

• May need to generate images for some delivery targets (e.g., EPUB and Kindle)


Word and MathType • Word has a built-in equation editor

– It does not produce MathML directly

• The Design Science MathType Word plugin can produce MathML directly – Can cut and paste from MathType as MathML – Can convert MathType binary equations to “inline

MathML”

• No other automated way to get MathML from the MathType equations


DITA and MathML

• Before DITA 1.3, no out-of-the-box MathML integration in DITA

• Integration doable, e.g. DITA for Publishers, Design Science solutions

• Need to implement MathML handling in the DITA Open Toolkit or other DITA tools


DEMONSTRATION


Demonstration

• Real process for scientific journal articles


THE TOOLS


PDF Rendering: FOP and jEuclid

• Apache FOP is open-source XSL-FO engine

• When integrated with Apache jEuclid engine renders MathML directly

• Rendition quality is good but may not be good enough for some publications or equations

• To configure, just add jEuclid jar files to the FOP installation


MathML in DITA • DITA 1.3 integrates MathML out of the box • This integration can be used with existing DITA 1.2 or

1.1 systems (not dependent on any other 1.3 features) • Provides the <mathml> container for containing inline

MathML markup. • Provides the <mathmlref> element for using MathML

markup by reference • Provides elements for representing semantic equations

separate from the data format of the equations • oXygenXML supports MathML in the editor and can

integrate with MathType


MS Word and MathType • MathType is a low-cost Word plugin

– Visual editing of equations – Can generate MathML – Can convert binary MathType equations to “inline

MathML” in the word – This conversion is not reversible

• Could also use Word’s proprietary equation markup – Not currently supported by the D4P Word-to-DITA

process – But technically possible to convert to MathML


Word-to-DITA Framework

• Part of DITA for Publishers project

• Uses a style-to-tag-map to map Word styles to DITA markup

• Supports translation of “inline” MathML to MathML in the DITA

• Requires using MathType to convert binary equations to inline MathML


THE PROCESS


0. Set Up • Set up the style-to-tag mapping for converting

Word to DITA – D4P provides an out-of-the-box mapping for built-

in Word styles – See DITA for Publishers User Guide for details

• Add the jEuclid libraries to your FOP installation

• Add the DITA 1.3 MathML and equation domains to your local topic type shells


1. Author in Word

• Use Word with styles

• Use MathType to create equations


2. Generate Inline MathML

• Use MathType to convert MathType equations to inline MathML

• May want to save DOCX file to a new location – Conversion is not reversable

– Makes the Word largely unusable


3. Generate DITA from The Word Doc

• Run the D4P Word-to-DITA process

• Results in DITA XML with MathML inline


4. Produce PDF with FOP

• Use normal DITA Open Toolkit process to generate PDF using FOP

• Equations should be rendered


Bonus: MathML In HTML

• The open-source MathJax package renders inline MathML in any Javascript-capable browser

• The DITA 1.3 MathML support includes generation of HTML with MathJax references

• Some browsers render MathML directly: – Firefox

– IE 10+ (I think)

• Google has dropped MathML support from Chrome


Resources

• DITA 1.3 spec: ???

• DITA for Publishers: http://www.dita4publishers.org

• MathType: http://www.dessci.com

• FOP: http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/

• Me: [email protected], http://contrext.com


http://www.dita4publishers.org

http://www.dessci.com

http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/

http://contrext.com

Eliot Kimber - Math ML with MathType, Word, DITA and FOP; soapconf 2014

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Transcript of Eliot Kimber - Math ML with MathType, Word, DITA and FOP; soapconf 2014