MathML and SVG

This Unit is about MathML and SVG in HTML5. Being able to use MathML and SVG directly in production and management tools is both a luxurious and freeing experience.

Both MathML and SVG are regarded as hard to use for a number of reasons:

1. They are complicated and very large specifications with enormously steep learning curves.
2. Both are very un-evenly supported across browsers and in the case of MathML there is only Firefox with reasonable support.
3. There are substitute approaches to both such as using images for equations and SVG.

However when they are used they deliver clearly superior outputs and are a lot more flexible.

This Unit is about  "How To Use" MathML and SVG for all types of publishing including: print, Apps, WebApps websites, LMS systems, and of course e-Books. The information is generic in nature but is targeted at licensees of IGP:Digital Publisher.

It is provided for those in publishing who may not be familiar with the mechanics, potential and reusability of both SVG and MathML.

The MathML Library and SVG Primitives library are both included in the education edition of IGP:Digital Publisher.

MathML and SVG Together

MathML and SVG in a tutorial Unit together may seem like a strange mix, but there are a number of reasons they are together:

1. They are both first order members of HTML5 (right or wrong) and after being around for a decade are finally starting to get the fame, attention and use they both deserve.
2. They are both vital components in education, training and learning digital content and have very high reuse potential as illustrated here.
3. They can both be relatively expensive to create and the library component approach significantly reduces production costs and challenges.
4. They are "off" the mainstream HTML5 methods and specifications and are both effectively strict XML components within the HTML5 environment.

SVG Primitives Library

There are currently four articles on SVG Primitives to help your understand what they are, what they do, what they look-like and how to use them in your digital content.

SVG Primitives - Information

SVG Primitives - Basic Tools

SVG Primitives - Polygons

SVG Primitives - Definitions

SVG Primitives - Customization Coming soon

SVG Primitives - Basic Animation Coming soon

There are approximately 500 SVG primitives available as part of ALL-IN (AZARDI Learning Library - Interactive Now). This Unit only shows some of these as examples and how to customize and use them in a real content context.

They are called primitives because they are primarily highly size and shape standardized SVG outlines that can be easily mixed and customized. They are all created by hand and commented to make it easy to access and use them.

This set of articles is designed to introduce publishers,

MathML Library

Content On It's Way.

There are approximately 1000 MathML equations available as part of ALL-IN (AZARDI Learning Library - Interactive Now). These start from simple common factors to be used inline, through to full proofs and worked examples.

They all use presentation MathML as that currently has the best support with Firefox (AZARDI Destop) and with the MathJax javascript library (AZARDI IOS and Android).

If you are using other reading systems that don't support MathML well or at all IGP:Digital Publisher will convert the MathML to SVG or PNG/JPG images at format packaging time. This ensures your MathML can be made available everywhere.

Samples will be make available in the near future.

Textbooks and Learning Resources

We deal with education publishers from many countries. For maths textbooks the images and equations are largely identical with density, page-count, production values and print quality being the discriminators.

Interestingly the instructional value is on par across all the books with the difference being illustrations and examples in various locale contexts.

With digital content the annual production costs and low page-count targets for producing 10s of millions of government subsidized textbooks annual go away. This is a very large problem in all developing countries.

Now the digital reading device problem emerges. It is a chicken and egg problem. We think the quality of the content should determine the performance of the device used, not vice-versa.

The IGP ALL-IN resources are designed to flatten the costs and increase the quality of many types of digital content textbooks; while not inhibiting production in any language;p or limiting any supporting locale content or imagery.

For this reason the ALL-IN files have little text included, and what text is included is marked and commented in the SVG Primitives to enable easy and instant internationalized and localization.