New Firefox add-on to convert PNG images to MathML

[Frédéric Wang]

(I posted that on the LaTeXML mailing list but forgot to cc
mozilla.dev.tech.mathml...)

Dear all,

I've been working again on an old idea for my Mathzilla collection:
using a LaTeX-to-MathML converter to transform images of mathematical
formulas to MathML (this is possible since most Web sites provide the
LaTeX source in the alt text). One of the issue in my old attempts was
to have a converter with good LaTeX coverage; this is now possible
thanks to the LaTeXML Web service. The add-on also caches the MathML
result to speed up further conversions and save some calls to the
LaTeXML Web service.

I've published the experimental add-on here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/image-to-mathml/

As an example, try to load a random page in
http://www.les-mathematiques.net/pages/licence.php and see how the
images are slowly replaced with MathML.

Note that at the moment, the add-on only has a few predefined rules. If
you know other Web sites using images of formula, please let me know:

https://github.com/fred-wang/Mathzilla/blob/master/image-to-mathml/lib/predefinedRules.js#L65

Note that the Wikipedia websites are of course included in the
predefined rules, so that's a temporary solution until Moritz's work is
available on all MediaWiki wikis.

I've also added a very basic UI to define you own rules but I think it
only works with Firefox >= 29. For example visit the page

https://physics.wordpress.com/

and click on the yellow regular pentagon in the toolbar. Then add a rule
for the pattern "https://physics.wordpress.com/*" and the CSS selector
"img.latex". The image on this page will be converted to MathML.

Finally, if you go to about:addons and select the Preferences for the
"Image to MathML" add-on, you can get access to more advanced options.

I've only started to work on that this week, so it's still very
experimental, but I hope you could already try it and provide feedback.

Thanks,

--
Fr�d�ric Wang
maths-informatique-jeux.com/blog/frederic