Which browsers do support MathML?

Question

We are going to start working on TeX to MathML translator soon. So, I am wondering which browsers (and starting from what version) do officially support MathML? Thanks

Group

You know that such things already exist? Also, given the nature of TeX it's impossible to do so in the general case. – Areopagite

caniuse.com/mathml – Denby

There is no way to write an answer to this question that will be of any use on an ongoing basis. – Guadalajara

Answer 1

Almost none, only Firefox and Safari can handle MathML.

See https://caniuse.com/mathml

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But there is a workaround available that replaces the unsupported MathML formulas by HTML and CSS: MathJax.js

Simply put the JavaScript file into your web page and your page will show correctly on almost all browsers. On Firefox this is basically a no-op.

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/2.7.2/MathJax.js?config=MML_HTMLorMML">

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Once you have done that you might think about switching back to TeX instead of MathML. This is supported by MathJax as well. TeX is older, shorter and functional superior to MathML, and well, similarly unreadable for humans.

In this case the script include should be

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/2.7.2/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS_CHTML">

Accentuate

I dunno; I'd argue that the sort of inline TeX that we ordinarily use in MathJax is far more readable than MathML, and is actually pretty darn readable. Of course, it depends on what you're writing, but come on, \( \sqrt 5 \) isn't nearly as unreadable as <msqrt><mn>5</mn></msqrt> – Confirmation

Yes, but the problem that you're showing has to do with XML, which was not designed to be human readable (same for HTML, really). If you consider that you could use pug (formerly Jade) as a front end for XML, your example could become this - decide for yourself if you find it more or less readable: <pre><code>msqrt mn 5</code></pre> – Laetitia

I have never, ever, gotten a block of code to format correctly. I've tried everything at this link without success: meta.#251861. And, only being allowed to edit a post for 5 minutes is idiotic IMHO – Laetitia

@JohnDeighan Sorry, I only just noticed your comment. I'd say the MathJax approach looks a lot more readable even than the version you presented, and has the added virtue of being more concise. – Confirmation

Answer 2

There is a big table of browser support on Wikipedia.

At the time of writing, it seems only Firefox supports MathML natively of the big players.

Tecumseh

As it stands, this doesn't answer the question; it merely provides a pointer where to look. Please include the relevant information in your answer. – Areopagite

@Areopagite You want me to copy the entire table into my answer? And should I update it whenever browser support changes? – Tecumseh

Thanks! As far as I can see the Internet Explorer "traditionally" does not support MathML natively?! – Group

@Group It appears to require the MathPlayer plugin. – Tecumseh

alex: Links can change, rot or die. So answers that only contain links (which, by their nature, are fairly ephemeral) are not considered a particularly good answer. – Areopagite

@Areopagite I agree, but I think this kind of question is best answered with an answer that points to a resource that is unlikely to go away such as Wikipedia. – Tecumseh

@Joey, Wrong reason. Because the world has confidence that data dumps for Wikipedia are going to survive many centuries longer than data dumps for SE. (And we're still not speaking about web.archive.org yet) – Rugged

Answer 3

I used Firefox for a long time, to view MathML documents, until I discover a distortion in square root symbol, specially when it was beside fractions with "tall" numerators and denominators. Then, I tried Pale Moon (last XP version) and discovered that the distortion did not happen with that browser. For best rendering, go to Pale Moon Options|Advanced|General settings and disable "Use Firefox Compatibility mode" checkbox (when this option is checked, it decreases the size of the characters in a fraction over fraction expression).

If you are a Macintosh user, this old version of Pale Moon does not exist for you platform, so try a very old version of Firefox. I tested version 24.8.1 and I saw that it renders the square root symbol very well.

Frizzle