FooTeX

FooTex is software for converting LaTeX math markup into mathml, html, or png. It is basically just a wrapper for texvc and blahtex. It provides some extra functionality, and gives a consistent interface to the functionality of the two underlying packages. The documentation is built into the source code. When you install footex, the documentation will be installed as a man page.

Software: footex.tar.gz

Texvc is part of MediaWiki. Blahtex was originally written by David Harvey, and texvc by Tomasz Wegrzanowski. David Harvey no longer maintains blahtex, but Gilles Van Assche packages an extended version of it called blahtexml, which also includes the blahtex executable used by FooTex. Blahtex is here. Both texvc and blahtex are packaged for debian, and you can install them simply by doing a "make depend" from inside footex's directory. This will also install dvipng.

To install everything on linux:

  make
  make install

Optional:

  make test

If you like, you can check whether browser_test_output.xhtml looks right in a browser that supports mathml in xhtml (i.e., firefox).

On BSD, you'll need to use gmake, and you may want to fiddle with the directory the executables are installed into.

man page

FOOTEX(1)                         Footex 0.4                         FOOTEX(1)



NAME
       FooTex - conversion of LaTeX math markup to mathml, html, or png

SYNOPSIS
       footex [options]

       footex [options] inputfile outputfile [outputfile2] [outputfile3]

       footex --mathml a.tex a.xml

       footex --html a.tex a.html

       footex --png --png-file a.png a.tex a.html info

DESCRIPTION
       Footex is a wrapper for two other pieces of software, blahtex and
       texvc. It provides a consistent interface to both of them.  It also
       builds on blahtex to handle math markup that blahtex wouldn't be able
       to handle directly. For instance, it can generate mathml from the
       following input, which plain blahtex wouldn't be able to handle:
               \beginalign*
                 y &= x^2 \\
                 \intertextand therefore, since $x=3$,
                   &= 9
               \endalign* Other functionality that footex supplies in
       addition to blahtex's is correct translation of the following macros:
               \, : \; \quad \qquad \ Footex also allows html output to be
       generated by texvc in cases where private macros have been defined.

OPTIONS
       In addition to the following options, FooTex accepts any of blahtex's
       options.

       --mathml
               Convert to mathml.

       --html  Convert to html. The resulting markup will, for example, use
               html tables to make built-up fractions. This will only work in
               simple cases.

       --png   Convert to a bitmap. The second output file is a snippet of
               html code that will display the bitmap with the proper
               baseline.  The third output file has two lines; the first line
               is the height in pixels, and the second is the depth in pixels.

       --prepend-file prepend.tex
               This is sort of like prepending the file prepend.tex to the tex
               input. This can be used to define macros used in the equation
               to be converted. The way this is actually handled internally is
               that footex tries to interpret any \newcommands in prepend.tex,
               and then tries to expand all those macros in the input, before
               handing it off to blahtex or texvc for conversion. This will
               only work for commands that have less than three arguments, and
               it will not work if the definition of the command includes
               optional arguments.

       --standalone
               Used with mathml output, causes the output to be a complete
               w3c-compliant xhtml file that can be viewed in a web browser.

       --help  Print brief information about the software.

OTHER INFORMATION
       FooTex's web page is at

               http://www.lightandmatter.com/footex/footex.html   .

AUTHOR
       FooTex was written by Ben Crowell,
       http://www.lightandmatter.com/personal/.  FooTex is little more than a
       wrapper for blahtex, by David Harvey, and texvc, by Tomasz
       Wegrzanowski. David Harvey no longer maintains blahtex, but Gilles Van
       Assche packages an extended version of it called blahtexml, which also
       includes the blahtex executable used by FooTex.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
       Copyright (C) 2007 by Benjamin Crowell.

       FooTex is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
       the terms of the GPL, or, optionally, Perl's license.



0.4                               2009-11-30                         FOOTEX(1)