Unicode Support For Mathematics
Unicode 3.2 contains a complete set (1927) of standard math characters to support technical publications on and off the web. MathML is a major beneficiary of this support, and a reasonably successful plain-text encoding is also possible
- Unicode provides great support for math in both marked up and plain text
- Unicode character properties facilitate plain-text encoding of mathematics but aren't used in MathML
- Heuristics allow plain text to be built up
- Need two more Unicode assignments: subscript and superscript operators
- On-screen keyboards and symbol boxes aid formula entry
- Unicode math characters could be useful for programming languages
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 Unicode 3.2 and the current ISO 10646 have almost all of the characters requested by the STIX committee for mathematical text. It turns out that many of these characters, notably the math alphanumerics, could be represented in other ways, either in plain text via variant tags or in marked-up text via tags. For purposes of data interchange, it's important to standardize on one encoding that works for math text in a variety of formats, plain and marked up. The encoding chosen does work very well in these formats. |
With a few additions to Unicode, mathematical expressions can represented with a remarkably readable Unicode plain-text format. The text consists of combinations of operators and operands. A simple operand consists of a span of alphanumerics, a definition that dramatically reduces the number of parenthesis-override pairs and thereby increases the readability of the plain text. Heuristics can be applied to the Unicode plain text to recognize what parts of a document are mathematical expressions. This allows the Unicode plain text to be used in a variety of ways, including in technical document preparation, symbolic manipulation, and numerical computation. Export to MathML, compilers, and other consumers of mathematical expressions is straightforward, so the approach can be used for handy math input methods as well as a notation in its own right.
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