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September 6, 2008 Version 1.70
m i m e T e X R e a d m e F i l e
Copyright(c) 2002-2008, John Forkosh Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
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by: John Forkosh
john@forkosh.com www.forkosh.com
This file is part of mimeTeX, which is free software.
You may redistribute and/or modify it under the terms
of the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later,
as published by the Free Software Foundation. See
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
MimeTeX is discussed and illustrated online at
its homepage
http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html
Or you can follow the Quick Start instructions below
(or the more detailed instructions in Section III)
to immediately install mimeTeX on your own machine.
Then point your browser to
http://www.yourdomain.com/mimetex.html
for a demo/tutorial and reference.
Installation problems? Point your browser to
mimeTeX's homepage
http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html
then click its "full mimeTeX manual" link and see
Section II.
I. QUICK START
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To compile and install mimeTeX
* unzip mimetex.zip in any convenient working directory
* to produce an executable that emits anti-aliased
gif images (recommended)
cc -DAA mimetex.c gifsave.c -lm -o mimetex.cgi
-or- for gif images without anti-aliasing
cc -DGIF mimetex.c gifsave.c -lm -o mimetex.cgi
-or- to produce an executable that emits mime xbitmaps
cc -DXBITMAP mimetex.c -lm -o mimetex.cgi
(For Windows, see "Compile Notes" in Section III below.)
* mv mimetex.cgi to your server's cgi-bin/ directory
* mv mimetex.html to your server's htdocs/ directory
* if the relative path from htdocs to cgi-bin isn't
../cgi-bin then edit mimetex.html and change the
few dozen occurrences as necessary.
Then, to quickly learn more about mimeTeX
* point your browser to www.yourdomain.com/mimetex.html
Any problems with the above?
* read the more detailed instructions below,
or see http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html
II. INTRODUCTION
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MimeTeX, licensed under the gpl, lets you easily embed LaTeX math in
your html pages. It parses a LaTeX math expression and immediately
emits the corresponding gif image, rather than the usual TeX dvi.
And mimeTeX is an entirely separate little program that doesn't
use TeX or its fonts in any way. It's just one cgi that you put in
your site's cgi-bin/ directory, with no other dependencies.
So mimeTeX is very easy to install. And it's equally easy to use.
Just place an html ![]()
tag in your document wherever you want to
see the corresponding LaTeX expression. For example,
=\int_{-\infty}^x~e^{-t^2}dt)
generates and displays the corresponding gif image on-the-fly,
wherever you put that ![]()
tag. MimeTeX doesn't need intermediate
dvi-to-gif conversion, and it doesn't clutter your filesystem with
separate little gif files for each converted expression. (Optional
image caching does store gif files, and subsequently reads them as
needed, rather than re-rendering the same images every time a page
is reloaded.)
III. COMPILATION AND INSTALLATION
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I've built and run mimeTeX under Linux and NetBSD using gcc.
The source code is ansi-standard C, and should compile
and execute under all environments without any change whatsoever.
Build instructions below are for Unix. Modify them as necessary
for your particular situation. Note the -DWINDOWS switch if
applicable.
Unzip mimetex.zip in any convenient working directory.
Your working directory should now contain
mimetex.zip your gnu zipped mimeTeX distribution containing...
README this file (see mimetex.html for demo/tutorial)
COPYING GPL license, under which you may use mimeTeX
mimetex.c mimeTeX source program and all required functions
mimetex.h header file for mimetex.c (and for gfuntype.c)
gfuntype.c parses output from gftype -i and writes bitmap data
texfonts.h output from several gfuntype runs, needed by mimetex.c
gifsave.c gif library by Sverre H. Huseby
mimetex.html sample html document, mimeTeX demo and tutorial
Note: all files in mimetex.zip use Unix line termination,
i.e., linefeeds (without carriage returns) signal line endings.
Conversion for Windows, Macs, VMS, etc, can usually be accomplished
with unzip's -a option, i.e., unzip -a mimetex.zip
Now, to compile a mimeTeX executable that emits anti-aliased gif
images (recommended for most uses), type the command
cc -DAA mimetex.c gifsave.c -lm -o mimetex.cgi
Or, for an executable that emits gif images without
anti-aliasing,
cc -DGIF mimetex.c gifsave.c -lm -o mimetex.cgi
Alternatively, to compile a mimeTeX executable that emits
mime xbitmaps, just type the command
cc -DXBITMAP mimetex.c -lm -o mimetex.cgi
Compile Notes:
* If (and only if) you're compiling a Windows executable
with the -DAA or -DGIF option (but not -DXBITMAP), then
add -DWINDOWS also. For example,
cc -DAA -DWINDOWS mimetex.c gifsave.c -lm -o mimetex.cgi
The above Unix-like syntax works with MinGW (http://www.mingw.org)
and djgpp (http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/) Windows compilers, but
probably not with most others, where it's only intended as a
"template".
* Several additional command-line options that you may find
useful are discussed in Section IId (href="#options")
of your mimetex.html page.
That's all there is to building mimeTeX. You can now test your
mimetex.cgi executable from the Unix command line by typing, e.g.,
./mimetex.cgi "x^2+y^2"
which should emit two ascii rasters something like the following
Ascii dump of bitmap image... Hex dump of colormap indexes...
........**..................**.. .......1**1................1**1.
.......*..*.....*..........*..*. .......*23*.....*..........*23*.
..........*.....*.............*. ..........*.....*.............*.
.***......*.....*....**.*.....*. .***1....2*.....*....**3*....2*.
.**.*....*......*....**.*....*.. .**.*...1*......*....**.*...1*..
..*.....*.*..******...*.*...*.*. ..*....2*.*..******...*.*..2*.*.
**.*...****.....*....*.*...****. **.*...****.....*....*.*2..****.
****............*.....**........ ****............*....1**........
................*......*........ ................*......*........
................*....**......... ................*....**1........
The 5 colormap indexes denote rgb...
.-->255 1-->196 2-->186 3-->177 *-->0
The right-hand illustration shows asterisks in the same positions as
the left-hand one, along with anti-aliased grayscale colormap indexes
assigned to neighboring pixels, and with the rgb value for each
index. Just typing ./mimetex.cgi without an argument should produce
ascii rasters for the default expression f(x)=x^2. If you see the
two ascii rasters then your binary's good, so mv it to your server's
cgi-bin/ directory and set permissions as necessary.
Once mimetex.cgi is working, mv it to your server's cgi-bin/ directory
(wherever cgi programs are expected), and chmod/chown it as necessary.
Then mv mimetex.html to your server's htdocs/ directory. Now point
your browser to www.yourdomain.com/mimetex.html and you should see
your mimeTeX user's manual reference page.
Install Notes:
* These two directories are typically of the form
somewhere/www/cgi-bin/ and somewhere/www/htdocs/
so I set up mimtex.html to access mimetex.cgi from
the relative path ../cgi-bin/ If your directories
are non-conforming, you may have to edit the few dozen
occurrences of ../cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi in mimetex.html
Sometimes a suitable symlink works. If not, you'll
have to edit. In that case, globally changing
../cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi often works.
* Either way, once mimetex.html displays properly, you can
assume everything is working, and can begin authoring html
documents using mimetex.cgi to render your own math.
IV. REVISION HISTORY
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A more detailed account of mimeTeX's revision history
is maintained at http://www.forkosh.com/mimetexchangelog.html
---
09/06/08 J.Forkosh version 1.70 released.
11/30/04 J.Forkosh version 1.60 released
10/02/04 J.Forkosh version 1.50 released on CTAN with various new
features and fixes, and updated documentation.
07/18/04 J.Forkosh version 1.40 re-released on CTAN with minor
changes, e.g., \mathbb font and nested \array's
now supported.
03/21/04 J.Forkosh version 1.40 released on CTAN, with improved
LaTeX compatibility, various new features and
fixes, including fix to work under Windows.
12/21/03 J.Forkosh version 1.30 released on CTAN, with improved
LaTeX compatibility and anti-aliasing, various new
features, and thoroughly updated documentation.
10/17/03 J.Forkosh version 1.20 released on CTAN, adding picture
environment and various other changes (e.g.,
more delimiters arbitrarily sized) and fixes.
07/29/03 J.Forkosh version 1.10 released on CTAN, completely replacing
mimeTeX's original built-in fonts with thinner and
more pleasing fonts, and adding one larger size.
06/27/03 J.Forkosh version 1.01 released on CTAN, adding lowpass
anti-aliasing for gifs, and http_referer checks,
and fixing a few very obscure bugs.
12/11/02 J.Forkosh version 1.00 released on CTAN, fixing \array bug
and adding various new features.
10/31/02 J.Forkosh version 0.99 released on CTAN
09/18/02 J.Forkosh internal beta test release
V. CONCLUDING REMARKS
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I hope you find mimeTeX useful. If so, a contribution to your
country's TeX Users Group, or to the GNU project, is suggested,
especially if you're a company that's currently profitable.
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