Presenting mathematical equations in HTML documents

HTML currently does not have a standard method of presenting mathematical equations. There are proposed methods for HTML 3.0, but no browsers, including Netscape, currently support the HTML 3.0 math tags. The best method of showing equations inside of documents is through the use of inline Compuserve GIF format images.

SDSC's Grand Challenge Equations provide some examples of GIF images diplaying complex equations. However, these images are bulky and are not integrated well with the text.

To get nicely integrated equations, these images could be further scaled.

And, to get even better integration with the text, the images could be made transparent.

As is painfully apparent, none of these solutions is really acceptable. Many electronic journals of mathematics use the Web to deliver TeX or LaTeX DVI files, Adobe PostScript (TM), or Adobe Acrobat (TM).