Status of this Document
This section describes the status of this document at the time
of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A
list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this
technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at
http://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document was produced by the W3C Math Working Group as
a Recommendation
and is part of the
W3C Math Activity.
The goals of the W3C Math Working Group are discussed in the W3C Math WG
Charter (revised July 2006). The authors of this document are
the W3C Math Working Group members. A list of participants in the W3C Math Working Group
is available.
This document has been reviewed by W3C Members, by software
developers, and by other W3C groups and interested parties, and is
endorsed by the Director as a W3C Recommendation. It is a stable
document and may be used as reference material or cited from another
document. W3C's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention
to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This
enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.
The Working Group maintains a comprehensive
Test Suite. This
is publicly available and developers are encouraged to submit their results for display.
The Test Results
are public. They show at least two interoperable implementations for each
essential test. Further details may be found in the
Implementation Report.
Closely associated with the MathML 3.0 specification is
A MathML for CSS Profile, also approved to be published as a Recommendation. This
describes a profile of MathML 3.0 that can be well formatted with Cascading Style Sheets.
The MathML 2.0 (Second Edition) specification has been a W3C
Recommendation since 2001. After its
recommendation, a W3C Math Interest Group collected
reports of experience
with the deployment of MathML and identified issues with MathML that
might be ameliorated. The rechartering of a Math Working Group
did not signal any change in the overall design of MathML.
The major additions in MathML 3 are support for
bidirectional layout, better linebreaking and explicit positioning,
elementary math notations, and a new strict content MathML vocabulary
with well-defined semantics. The MathML 3 Specification has also been
restructured.
This document was produced by a group operating under
the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a
public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with
the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions
for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of
a patent which the individual believes contains
Essential Claim(s)
must disclose the information in accordance with
section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
Public discussion of MathML and issues of support through the W3C
for mathematics on the Web takes place on the public mailing list of the Math Working
Group (list archives).
To subscribe send an email to www-math-request@w3.org
with the word subscribe in the subject line.
The basic chapter structure of this document is based on the earlier
MathML 2.0 Recommendation [MathML2]. That MathML 2.0
itself was a revision of the earlier W3C Recommendation MathML 1.01
[MathML1]; MathML 3.0 is a revision of the W3C
Recommendation MathML 2.0. It differs from it in that all previous
chapters have been updated, some new
elements and attributes added and some
deprecated.
Much has been moved to separate documents containing explanatory
material, material on characters and entities and on the MathML DOM.
The discussion of character entities has led to the document
XML Entity Definitions for Characters [Entities],
which is now a W3C Recommendation. The concern with
use of CSS with MathML has led to the document A MathML for CSS Profile
[MathMLforCSS], which is a W3C Recommendation
accompanying this one.
The biggest differences from MathML 2.0 (Second Edition) are in Chapters 4 and 5, although there have been
smaller improvements throughout the specification. A more detailed
description of changes from the previous Recommendation follows.
-
Much of the non-normative explication
that formerly was found in Chapters 1 and 2, and many examples from
elsewhere in the previous MathML specifications, were removed
from the MathML3 specification and planned to be incorporated into a MathML Primer
to be prepared as a separate document. It is expected this will help
the use of this formal MathML3 specification as a reference document
in implementations, and offer the new user better help in
understanding MathML's deployment. The remaining content of Chapters 1
and 2 has been edited to reflect the changes elsewhere in the
document, and in the rapidly evolving Web environment. Some of the
text in them went back to early days of the Web and XML, and its
explanations are now commonplace.
-
Chapter 3, on presentation-oriented markup, adds new material on linebreaking,
and on markup for elementary math notations used in many
countries (mstack, mlongdiv and other
associated elements). Other changes include revisions to
the mglyph, mpadded and maction
elements and significant unification and cleanup of attribute
values.
Earlier work, as recorded in the W3C Note Arabic
mathematical notation, has allowed clarification of the
relationship with bidirectional text and examples
with RTL text have been added.
-
Chapter 4, on content-oriented markup, contains major changes and additions.
The meaning of the actual content remains as before in principle,
but a lot of work has been done on expressing it better. A few new elements have been added.
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Chapter 5 has been refined as its purpose has been further
clarified to deal with the mixing of markup languages. This chapter deals,
in particular, with interrelations of parts of the
MathML specification, especially with presentation and content
markup.
-
Chapter 6 is a new addition which deals with the issues of interaction
of MathML with a host environment. This chapter deals with interrelations
of the MathML specification with XML and HTML, but in the context of deployment
on the Web. In particular there is a discussion of the interaction of CSS
with MathML.
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Chapter 7 replaces the previous Chapter 6, and has been rewritten
and reorganized to reflect the new
situation in regard to Unicode, and the changed
W3C context with regard to named character entities. The
new W3C specification XML Entity Definitions for
Characters, which incorporates those used for mathematics has
become a a W3C Recommendation, [Entities].
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The Appendices, of which there are eight shown, have been
reworked.
Appendix A now contains the new RelaxNG schema
for MathML3 as well as discussion of MathML3 DTD issues.
Appendix B addresses media types associated with MathML and
implicitly constitutes a request for the registration of three new ones,
as is now standard for work from the W3C.
Appendix C contains a new simplified and reconsidered Operator Dictionary.
Appendices D, E, F, G and H contain similar non-normative material to
that in the previous specification, now appropriately updated.
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A fuller discussion of the document's evolution can be found in
Appendix F Changes.
