Chris Rowley writes: : > if you accept this, then the XML/MathML world is no different. make up : > a new language, using XML syntax, to say whatever you want : > <foo n="3">x<bar>y</bar></foo> : > (forget the verbose syntax for now), and then provide the XSL : > transformation script which maps that to presentational MathML. : : I have been reliably informed that XSL does not allow specifications : that are expressive enough to do this job (basically since it knows : nothing about maths, in the sense that it has no concept of arithmetic). I certainly hope that the suggestion is valid even though XSL may not be adequate to the task. The use of anything other than XSL for web-served materials is likely to be difficult. But in this context the processing from a TeX-like language to xml is in-house. I see no reason to suffer any restrictions that might be imposed by XSL. A more general SGML or XML processor should be able to do anything that is wanted. Even a processing framework like that of Megginson's sgmlspm/sgmlspl or, for xml purists, his sax, should be able to do the job. The real question is: Just what job is required to write MathML safely? Since MathML is completely specified and mathematical notation, as used by most LaTeX (or TeX) authors, is not specified with a matching degree of precise structure, we need to arrive at a mathematical understanding of what needs to be done to supplement mathematical notation, as it has been used through the years. For example, we need to understand exactly why mathematicians have no trouble parsing \sin ax \cos bx . Absent that, LaTeX authors will never have a way to know if their documents will be safely translated without in some way providing parallel MathML code for every math environment. (See http://www.albany.edu/~hammond/gellmu/notation) -- Bill