AsciiMath

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title: "AsciiMath" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["lightweight-markup-languages", "mathematical-markup-languages"] description: "Mathematical markup language" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AsciiMath" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Mathematical markup language ::

AsciiMath is a client-side mathematical markup language for displaying mathematical expressions in web browsers.

Details

Using the JavaScript script ASCIIMathML.js, AsciiMath notation is converted to MathML at the time the page is loaded by the browser, natively in Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and via a plug-in in IE7. The simplified markup language supports a subset of the LaTeX language instructions, as well as a less verbose syntax (which, for example, replaces "\times" with "xx" or "times" to produce the "×" symbol). The resulting MathML mathematics can be styled by applying CSS to class "mstyle".{{citation | last1 = Sorge | first1 = Volker | last2 = Chen | first2 = Charles | last3 = Raman | first3 = T. V. | last4 = Tseng | first4 = David | contribution = Towards Making Mathematics a First Class Citizen in General Screen Readers | doi = 10.1145/2596695.2596700 | isbn = 978-1-4503-2651-3 | location = New York, NY, USA | pages = 40:1–40:10 | publisher = ACM | title = Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A '14) | year = 2014| s2cid = 6892997

The script ASCIIMathML.js is freely available under the MIT License. The latest version also includes support for SVG graphics, natively in Mozilla Firefox and via a plug-in in IE7.

Per May 2009 there is a new version available. This new version still contains the original ASCIIMathML and LaTeXMathML as developed by Peter Jipsen, but the ASCIIsvg part has been extended with linear-logarithmic, logarithmic-linear, logarithmic-logarithmic, polar graphs and pie charts, normal and stacked bar charts, different functions like integration and differentiation and a series of event trapping functions, buttons and sliders, in order to create interactive lecture material and exams online in web pages.

ASCIIMathML.js has been integrated into MathJax, starting with MathJax v2.0.

Example

The well-known quadratic formula :x=\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}

looks like this in AsciiMath: x=(-b +- sqrt(b^2 – 4ac))/(2a)

References

References

1. Gray, James. (2007). "''ASCIIMathML'': now everyone can type MathML". MSOR Connections.
2. Johnson, Brian. (January 2005). "Interactive LATEX to MathML/HTML translation". Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute for Production Technology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense.
3. [https://github.com/mathjax/asciimathml/blob/master/LICENSE asciimathml/LICENSE at master · mathjax/asciimathml]
4. (11 February 2012). "MathJax v2.0 beta available".
5. Cervone, Davide. (February 2012). "MathJax: A Platform for Mathematics on the Web". [[Notices of the AMS]].

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