# Tech question: Is there freeware for creating equations in web pages?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-question-is-there-freeware-for-creating-equations-in-web-pages/406131>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 30, 2007, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-question-is-there-freeware-for-creating-equations-in-web-pages/406131 "2007-05-30T23:20:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-question-is-there-freeware-for-creating-equations-in-web-pages/406131/1 "2007-05-30T23:20:19Z")

</div>

I’m a math teacher, and would like to create a good website that has homework assignments and lesson tutorials. Is there a good software package that I can author equations and use them in web sites (short of taking screen shots of Microsoft Word Equation Editor equations)?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-question-is-there-freeware-for-creating-equations-in-web-pages/406131/2 "2007-05-30T23:32:48Z")

</div>

heres a discussion of the problem and several solutions. [http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/math/](http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/math/) And yes taking screen shot images and cutting out the equation from the graphic is not a bad answer.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-question-is-there-freeware-for-creating-equations-in-web-pages/406131/3 "2007-05-30T23:47:35Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=AWB]  
I’m a math teacher, and would like to create a good website that has homework assignments and lesson tutorials. Is there a good software package that I can author equations and use them in web sites (short of taking screen shots of Microsoft Word Equation Editor equations)?  
[/QUOTE]

My own weblog, [_The Unapologetic Mathematician_](http://unapologetic.wordpress.com/), is hosted on WordPress for free, and it supports embedded LaTeX.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\
**Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-question-is-there-freeware-for-creating-equations-in-web-pages/406131/4 "2007-05-31T00:17:16Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=Mathochist]  
My own weblog, [_The Unapologetic Mathematician_](http://unapologetic.wordpress.com/), is hosted on WordPress for free, and it supports embedded LaTeX.  
[/QUOTE]  
That’s interesting. LaTeX is something I want to learn, since I’m moving into a field that will involve more math that I’ve used in quite a while, but I presume WordPress uses some server technology that handles the embedded LaTeX code? I couldn’t just slam it into a webpage hosted on a generic webserver and expect browsers to understand it?

(PS: cool blog. 🙂 )

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\
**Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tech-question-is-there-freeware-for-creating-equations-in-web-pages/406131/5 "2007-05-31T00:27:01Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=Sunspace]  
That’s interesting. LaTeX is something I want to learn, since I’m moving into a field that will involve more math that I’ve used in quite a while, but I presume WordPress uses some server technology that handles the embedded LaTeX code? I couldn’t just slam it into a webpage hosted on a generic webserver and expect browsers to understand it?  
[/QUOTE]

When the parser that translates what I write into actual code for the page, it turns the expression

latex \bullet\rightleftarrows\bullet

into the image tag

\<img src=‘[http://l.wordpress.com/latex.php?latex=\bullet\rightleftarrows\bullet&bg=e6e6e6&fg=000000&s=0](http://l.wordpress.com/latex.php?latex=%5Cbullet%5Crightleftarrows%5Cbullet&bg=e6e6e6&fg=000000&s=0)’ alt=‘\bullet\rightleftarrows\bullet’ title=‘\bullet\rightleftarrows\bullet’ class=‘latex’ /\>

That is, it passes what I type to a php script which outputs an image as source for the tag. I’m not sure what software they use, but it might be possible to find a similar script elsewhere. If nothing else, you might look for a program that will take a bit of LaTeX and spit out an image you could manually post and link to.

> [@](#):
>
> (PS: cool blog. 🙂 )

I think so. I’m just hoping people on hiring committees do too. 😃