More browsers and Web sites are targeting a Unicode solution which is described below, but workarounds may still be needed for older browsers.
The following Unicode fonts include a comprehensive set of mathematical characters and are free for academic use.
The following browsers have the most consistent results
Internet Explorer is also viable, but more recent versions are recommended.
If the "Text Version" matches the "Graphic Version", your computer has a font with mathetical symbols installed.
| Graphic Version | Text version (should match) |
|---|---|
 |
∀OS (year(OS) ≥ 2001 | ∃Font ∋ (∛, ∬♁∰⦖,≈)) |
Older versions of Internet Explorer for Windows does not display mathematical symbols by default. Users who prefer Internet Explorer for Windows should set the Latin font to Arial Unicode MS or some other Unicode script with math symbol support.
Internet Explorer for Macintosh may not support all mathematical symbols.
For text documents, the following is recommended.
Use the Windows Character Map to insert mathematical symbols.
Use the Macintosh Character Viewer/Palette to insert mathematical symbols.
No matter which method you use to create the document, the HTML page must be declared as a Unicode page with the following meta-tag.
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
...
</head>
Although it is generally not recommended to specify fonts for a language, it may be necessary in order to force Internet Explorer 5-6 to use the correct display fonts.This can be done either via CSS styles or via the FONT tag.
Below is the CSS style class listing some suggested font specifications.
.math {font-family: "Unicode Symbols", "Times New Roman", "Apple Symbols","Arial Unicode MS"}
Unicode Symbols is a freeware font with a very large set of symbol fonts included. Arial Unicode MS comes from Microsoft while Apple Symbols is provided by Apple.
The Times New Roman font on Windows and in newer Macs does include the basic Greek alphabet.
If you can use either the Windows Character Map or the Macintosh Character Viewer/Palette with Dreamweaver, Notepad (Win), Unipad (Win) or BBEdit (Mac) to insert mathematical symbols directly into the HTML.
However, you may get uneven results between browsers.
You can substitute numeric entity codes for the mathematical symbols. For example:
See the Math Symbol Unicode chart or Alan Wood's Mathematical Operator Unicode table for other common symbols.
You can use the <sup></sup> tag to create super script text and <sub></sub> to create sub-script text. See examples below:
Code: x<sup>x+1</sup>
Result: xx+1
Code: x<sub>i+1</sub>
Result: xi+1
See the Superscript page for additional options.
Math ML is an XML language designed to present complex equations. MathML and HTML 5 combinations are supported, but only in the most recent browsers (e.g Internet Explorer 9, Safari 5.1, Firefox 4+).
For now it is recommended that:
The following fonts are availble free for educational use and include most encoded mathematical and technical symbols.
