LaTeX Support

Posted 27 March 2004 by Reed A. Cartwright

↗ The current version of this post is on the live site: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/03/latex-support.html

The Panda's Thumb now has $\mbox{\LaTeX}$ support based on a plugin I developed. I chose to go with converting the equations to pngs because MathML support is not where I'd like it in today's browsers. I'd like to thank Wesley for updating some software on the server to allow this to work. *Mutation-Selection Balance* $${\Delta}q \approx \mu-sq^{* 2} \approx 0 \Rightarrow \mu \approx sq^{* 2} \Rightarrow q^* \approx \sqrt{\frac{\mu}{s}}$$

11 Comments

D. Eppstein · 27 March 2004

The background color of the equation doesn't match the background on the rest of the page in my browser (Safari) -- it's a little darker than it should be. I assume this is the usual problem with pngs and gamma settings, e.g. see http://www.hut.fi/u/hsivonen/png-gamma.html

Nomen Nescio · 27 March 2004

FWIW, that background looks fine on my machine (galeon 1.3.8/linux), which is rather surprising because my monitor is so decrepit and dark that the hardware alone usually screws up gamma settings beyond all repair for me. the wonders of web technology, i suppose...

Nix · 27 March 2004

Aaah, it's nice indeed to see Computer Modern again. :)

Reed A. Cartwright · 27 March 2004

Eppstein,

I'm sorry that Safari doesn't work for you. I looked at the link and counldn't figure out what the solution would be. Do you know of one, especially if it can be done with Image::Magick?

Loren Petrich · 28 March 2004

I'm also using Safari, and I also find a faint difference. I took a screenshot and examined it with Photoshop, and I found:

Page bkgd color: 255,255,204 - #FFFFCC
Equation bkgd color: 255,255,194 - #FFFFC2

The page bkgd color agrees with what's in the styles file styles-site.css

The text colors were more difficult to verify, because of their antialiasing, but the page text color was consistent with the styles-file value of 102,51,0 - #663300

However, the equation color seems to be 82,35,0 - #522300

Reed A. Cartwright · 28 March 2004

Safari apparantly doesn't render the colors equally. The png's background is really #FFFFCC. I'm working on changing the tex2png plugin so the background is transparent. However, that will require a workaround for IE. There might be a way to compromise.

Matt · 28 March 2004

Funny, but the background looks fine on my OS X machine running Safari, but it's BLACK on my Windows machine running IE.

But anyway, how would I use the LaTeX capability?

Reed A. Cartwright · 28 March 2004

Matt,

IE has a bug. It doesn't render transparent png's correctly. There is a workaround javascript, I just haven't implemented it yet.

When I'm done with this latest update, I'll explain LaTeX syntax to the authors.

Mike · 29 March 2004

Windows 2000, IE 5: Dark brown (?) characters on a black background. At least, the ALT tag works, and you can sort of figure out what it is.

For laughs, I brought it up in Netscape 4.7. The entire background is black, but the text is almost readabe.

Reed A. Cartwright · 29 March 2004

You need atleast IE 5.5 to render the pngs correctly.

old slut nude · 8 July 2005

Thanks!