Re: HTML math fonts?

[PPARKER@TWSUVM.UC.TWSU.EDU]

> Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:51:27 -0600
> From: Jim Green <JMGreen@sisna.com>
>
> At 01:00 PM 8/25/97 MDT, someone wrote:
> > When I need a page of text with many math symbols to appear on an html
> > page, I use microsoft word and write the equations in their equation
> > editor. I then save the file in html format. The equations are
> > converted into gifs.
> >      When the page is mostly math I use Mathcad.
>
> This was a very helpful discussion -- while it lasted -- I guess there is
> only so much to say.
>
> Do I understand then that we PC types need to purchase MS Word (or Mathcad
> or the like)?  I really do not want to contribute to Bill's domination of
> the galaxy; won't the latest WP do the trick as well????  I am currently
> using WP6.1; I guess I would have to upgrade.

HTML may have originated with a physicist (Berners-Lee at CERN), but it was
hijacked by commercial interests long before it matured.  Thus graphics and
empty razzle-dazzle are quite advanced while it still offers *NO* ability
to format a differential equation.  You have a few choices of how you turn
formatted mathematics into a GIF.  You can use latex2html on Unix or OS/2
boxes (NT promised "soon") *if* you start with LaTeX. Otherwise, you could
use any wp app, print-to-file as PostScript, preview with GhostView (or
equivalent for OS/2 or MS-Win), and convert to GIFs with any free ps2gif
app (there are some).
   And there's always commercial shrink-wrapped stuff from MS et al.
MS is clearly out to control the Web, so they are making it easier to use
their products to produce marginal Web pages.  These will become standard,
and HTML will never accomodate serious math.

---------------------------------------------
Phil Parker        pparker@twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu
Random quote for this second:
  Watch what people are cynical about,
  and one can often discover what they lack.
  ---George S. Patton