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Re: [Axiom-mail] TeX vs LaTeX output on AXIOM


From: michel . lavaud
Subject: Re: [Axiom-mail] TeX vs LaTeX output on AXIOM
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:45:38 +0100

Dear Chris,

> Many thanks for your reply - you are correct of course.  However, the
> reason for wanting \frac and ^ rather than \over and \sp is that I shall
> be using AXIOM to produce HTLM pages on the fly by piping the output via
> TtH.  This does not support \sp, hence my request.

Personally, I use TeX4ht, by Eytan Gurari, to output HTML from LaTeX,
because it allows to process LaTeX files that use packages together with
your personal additional definitions, and also Plain TeX . The reason is
that TeX4ht  uses TeX itself to process the source files, in addition to
its own program. All other LaTeX -> html software I know use a dictionary
(i.e. a finite table of conversion, as compared to the potentially
infinite number of LaTeX commands) to produce html output. Therefore, as
soon as you use a definition unknown to the software (TtH or whatever)
coming from a LaTeX package or of your own, you are stuck. Or, more
exactly, you have to add manually a corresponding entry into the table (if
you are courageous) or make the software to ignore it (I confess sadly
that's what I did in practice for most unknown commands, when I used
TeX2rtf, before TeX4ht :-() .

> I wish to combine the output generated by AXIOM, with mathematical text
> written in LaTeX and produce an HTML page on the fly, ie no editing of the
> page allowed by me for fine tuning.  This is part of a computer aided
> assessment system and has been done very successfully using Maple and TtH.
> I am confident with this technique for my purposes.  I want to use an open
> source CAS, rather than Maple, and hence my choice of AXIOM.

I imagine this could be done, with the present state of Axiom, by
processing the tex output with TeX4ht instead of TtH.
I suppose you just want to create html output without any editing, and
don't mean "on the fly" in the sense of imaxima.el, where each formula
submitted to Maxima is output in tex, compiled individually and displayed
inside the Emacs buffer as an image (if I understood well the process) ?

> I know that this isn't the only route for displaying mathematics on the
> web.  Of course, I'm operating with a number of constraints. I will be
> using the results with students, and requiring them to have a plugin
> component of any kind is a real barrier.  I want the resulting pages to be
> viewed on the major browers. If I choose another route (math ML for
> example), this will be a real problem.

Yes, I agree with you. IMHO, the most secure and universal way is to
display formulas as gif or png images, the same way as imaxima.el. Some
people say it is not beautiful, so one has to choose between beauty and
rigor I think.

> I have two further questions
>
> (1) Can I modify the TeX function, to fine tune the output in a
> MyTeX() function?  If so, where should I look?

I am not sure to understand the question?

> (2) Can anyone suggest an alternative route to generating HTML
> fragments from AXIOM expressions?

William Schelter had developed a very clever way to add formulas outputted
by Maxima directly into html files, with the 2d output of Maxima. You can
see an example in the Maxima's tutorial, in the lower window of Xmaxima.
It is not as beautiful as LaTeX output with Emacs + imaxima.el, of course,
but it is html, and it is usable on any browser I think. WS had told me it
was one of his main projects, but unfortunately he couldn't go to the end,
and I don't know in which direction he intended to go. Maybe Jim Amundson
or Tim Daly would know more about that?

Best wishes,

address@hidden
http://www.univ-orleans.fr/EXT/ASTEX
ftp://ftp.univ-orleans.fr/pub/tex/PC/AsTeX
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