MathJax Documentation

Release 3.0

Davide Cervone, Volker Sorge, Peter Krautzberger, Robert Miner

Jul 27, 2020

 The Basics

1 What is MathJax? 3

2 Accessibility Features 5

3 Writing Mathematics for MathJax 11

4 The MathJax Community 15

5 Reporting Issues 17

6 Getting Started with MathJax Components 19

7 Configuring and Loading MathJax 25

8 The MathJax Components 33

9 Typesetting and Converting Mathematics 43

10 Hosting Your Own Copy of MathJax 49

11 Making a Custom Build of MathJax 53

12 Examples in a Browser 65

13 Getting Started with Node 67

14 Three Ways to Use MathJax in Node 69

15 Examples of MathJax in Node 71

16 TeX and LaTeX Support 73

17 MathML Support 117

18 AsciiMath Support 119

19 MathJax Output Formats 123

20 Automatic Line Breaking 127

i
21 MathJax Font Support 129

22 Browser Compatibility 131

23 Configuring MathJax 133

24 MathJax in Dynamic Content 165

25 Custom Extensions 167

26 The MathJax Processing Model 169

27 Synchronizing your code with MathJax 171

28 Using the MathJax API 173

29 MathJax Frequently Asked Questions 175

30 MathJax Badges 179

31 Articles and Presentations 181

32 Upgrading from v2 to v3 183

33 What’s New in MathJax 193

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 MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

MathJax is an open-source JavaScript display engine for LaTeX, MathML, and AsciiMath notation that works in all
modern browsers, with built-in support for assistive technology like screen readers.
Version 3.0 of MathJax is a complete rewrite of MathJax from the ground up, and its usage and configuration is
significantly different from that of MathJax version 2. Use the green menu at the bottom of the sidebar on the left to
access the version 2 documentation if you need it.

The Basics 1
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2 The Basics
 CHAPTER 1

What is MathJax?

MathJax is an open-source JavaScript display engine for LaTeX, MathML, and AsciiMath notation that works in all
modern browsers. It was designed with the goal of consolidating the recent advances in web technologies into a single,
definitive, math-on-the-web platform supporting the major browsers and operating systems, including those on mobile
devices. It requires no setup on the part of the user (no plugins to download or software to install), so the page author
can write web documents that include mathematics and be confident that users will be able to view it naturally and
easily. One simply includes MathJax and some mathematics in a web page, and MathJax does the rest.
MathJax uses web-based fonts to produce high-quality typesetting that scales and prints at full resolution, unlike math-
ematics included as bitmapped images. With MathJax, mathematics is text-based rather than image-based, and so it is
available for search engines, meaning that your equations can be searchable, just like the text of your pages. MathJax
allows page authors to write formulas using TeX and LaTeX notation, MathML (a World Wide Web Consortium stan-
dard for representing mathematics in XML format), or AsciiMath notation. MathJax can generate output in several
formats, including HTML with CSS styling, or scalable vector graphics (SVG) images.
MathJax includes the ability to generate speakable text versions of your mathematical expressions that can be used
with screen readers, providing accessibility for the visually impaired. The assistive support in MathJax also includes
an interactive expression explorer that helps these users to “walk through” an expression one piece at a time, rather
than having to listen to a complex expression all at once, and the ability to “collapse” portions of the expressions to
allow a more simplified expression to be read, and only expanded if more detail is desired.
MathJax is modular, so it can load components only when necessary, and can be extended to include new capabilities
as needed. MathJax is highly configurable, allowing authors to customize it for the special requirements of their web
sites. Unlike earlier versions of MathJax, version 3 can be packaged into a single file, or included as part of larger
bundles for those sites that manage their javascript assets in that way.
Finally, MathJax has a rich application programming interface (API) that can be used to make the mathematics on
your web pages interactive and dynamic. Version 3 has been rewritten in ES6 using Typescript (a version of javascript
that includes type-checking and the ability to transpile to ES5). It was designed to be used as easily on a server (as
part of a node.js application) as it is in a browser. This makes pre-processing of web pages containing mathematics
much easier than with version 2, so web sites can perform all the math processing once up front, rather than having
the browser do it each time the page is viewed.

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4 Chapter 1. What is MathJax?

 CHAPTER 2

Accessibility Features

MathJax’s mission is to provide the best tools for mathematics on the web. Naturally, this means for everyone and thus
accessibility is an important concern for us.

2.1 MathJax User Interface

The MathJax user interface currently consists of the MathJax Menu and the various MathJax messages, such as syntax
error messages from the TeX input processor.
The user interface for version 2 was localized to over 20 languages and many more partial localizations thanks to the
fantastic support of the community at TranslateWiki.net. Localization is not yet available in version 3, but is on the
roadmap for a future version.
The MathJax Menu follows WCAG 2.0 guidelines. Each MathJax fragment is included in the tab order; the menu can
be triggered via the space or menu key; and navigation in the menu is possible using the arrow keys.

2.2 MathJax Accessibility Extensions

The MathJax Accessibility extensions provide several tools and features that enable universal rendering of mathematics
on the web. They enhance rendering both visually and aurally. In particular:
• An innovative responsive rendering of mathematical content through collapsing and exploration of subexpres-
sions.
• An aural rendering tool providing on-the-fly speech-text for mathematical content and its subexpressions using
various rule sets.
• Tactile rendering tool enabling Nemeth Braille output on a connecte Braille displays.
• An exploration tool, allowing for meaningful exploration of mathematical content including multiple highlight-
ing features, magnification and synchronized aural rendering.

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The Accessibility Extensions support the widest selection of browsers, operating systems, and assistive technologies
as they only require the use of well-supported web standards such as WAI-ARIA, in particular labels and live regions.
The Accessibility Extensions can be enabled using the MathJax Contextual Menu (right-click on any typeset expres-
sion), and are loaded automatically when enabled. The contextual menu code is included in all the combined MathJax
components, such as tex-chtml and mml-svg. If you are making a custom configuration, you can include ui/
menu to enable the contextual menu, or you can include any of the a11y extensions explicitly.
See the Accessibility Extensions Options section for details about how to configure the extensions.

2.3 Screen Reader Support

Some screen readers support MathML, MathJax’s internal format. Screenreaders like ChromeVox, JAWS (on IE), and
TextHelp support MathJax directly (most only version 2); other screenreaders are supported by the assistive-mml
extension as of version 3.0.1.
The assistive-mml extension embeds visually hidden MathML alongside MathJax’s visual rendering while hid-
ing the visual rendering from assistive technology (AT) such as screenreaders. This allows most MathML-enabled
screenreaders to read out the underlying mathematics. It’s important to note that Presentation MathML is usually not
expressive enough to voice the mathematics properly in all circumstances, which is why screenreaders have to rely on
heuristics to analyze the MathML semantically.
The quality of MathML support in screenreaders varies greatly, with different levels of MathML feature support,
different speech rule sets, and different voicing technologies.
The expected result for MathJax given the current state of technology is roughly the following:
• The visually-hidden MathML is read out correctly by AT (i.e., not just the character strings but, e.g., <mfrac>
leads to “fraction”; this will vary with the MathML support of the screenreader).
• The visual rendering is not read out by AT
• The MathJax Menu triggers AT to say “clickable” before each math element.
– This allows keyboard users to enter the MathJax Menu via space or menu key.
• The visually hidden MathML does not get an outline (usually placed at an odd location due to the target of the
outline being visually hidden).
– except in iOS VoiceOver, where this allows the user to hook into VoiceOver’s exploration features.

2.4 More Information

2.4.1 Accessibility Extension

MathJax offers accessibility support via its own built-in extension that provides a choice of support options as well
as a high degree of personalization. The extension can be activated either via the context menu, which itself is fully
accessible, or by default using configuration options. Similarly its various features and options are best selected
via the MathJax Menu or programmatically using the accessibility options. We discuss the different features of the
accessibility tool at the hand of the context menu, roughly in the order in which they appear.
Most features of the Accessibility extensions are based on technology provided by the Speech Rule Engine. For some
more details and information please also see there.
MathJax’s supports the widest selection of browsers, operating systems, and assistive technologies as they only require
the use of well-supported web standards such as WAI-ARIA, in particular labels and live regions.

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Interactive Exploration

The main feature is an interactive exploration mode that allows a reader to traverse and explore sub-expressions step-
by-step. The explorer is activated in the context menu by checking the Activate item in the Accessibility sub-menu.
Once a math expression is focused, the explorer can be started by pressing the Enter key. The cursor keys then allow
traversal of the expression.

Keyboard Explorer Commands

The keyboard explorer is used to interact with a mathematical expression using keyboard commands. Interaction
allows a reader to traverse an expression in a mathematical meaningful way, examining sub-expressions and diving
into details as they see fit.
The keyboard explorer supports multiple types of output: Speech and Braille output for the sub-expression that is
explored, magnification of that sub-expression, and synchronised highlighting with the navigation.
Navigation can be started when a MathJax expression is focused and quit at any time during the exploration. When
navigation is restarted, the application will continue where the user has left off within the expression.

Overview of key bindings

Essential Keys

An earcon is played as indicator that the boundary of an expression has been reached in either direction.

Advanced Options

Special key combinations for navigating tables

Special Notes

Note: Depending on the implementation quality of the particular browser/screenreader/OS combination (especially
Chrome and IE), users might have to disable screenreader reading modes (e.g., “browse mode” in NVDA, “virtual
cursor” in JAWS) before being able to launch the MathJax explorer application.

During traversal, focused sub-expressions are highlighted and optionally magnified. In addition, an aural rendering
is pushed to a screen reader, if one is available, and a tactile rendering can be read on a Braille display, if one is
connected.

Speech & Braille Support

Both aural and tactile rendering can be controlled via the options in the Speech sub-menu. Speech Output and Braille
Output, respectively, control whether or not speech or Braille output is generated. If speech is generated, it is by
default also displayed in Speech Subtitles, which can be switched off and hidden. Braille on the other hand is by
default hidden but can be displayed by switching on the Braille Subtitles.
Speech is generally generated with respect to the currently chosen locale (if it is available). In addition, there are a
number of different rule sets that can be chosen for translating math to text, where each can have a number of different
preferences for how a particular expression is spoken. By default, MathJax uses the MathSpeak rule set in Verbose

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mode; however, the menu allows this to be changed to either the ClearSpeak or ChromeVox. Each rule set has several
different preference settings; three in the case of MathSpeak, for example, which primarily influence the length of
produced text. ClearSpeak on the other hand has a large number of preferences that allow very fine-tuned control
over how different types of expressions are spoken. The MathJax menu allows a smart choice of preferences by only
displaying the preferences that are currently relevant for the sub-expression that is currently explored.
Some rule-set and preference settings can also be controlled by keyboard commands. This allows the user to have
the same expression read in different variants without having to leave the exploration mode. The > key switches rule
sets between MathSpeak and ClearSpeak if both are available for the current locale. The < key cycles preferences for
the currently active rule set. For ClearSpeak rules, preference cycling depends on the type of the currently explored
sub-expression, similar to smart selection of menu entries.

Note: MathJax currently only supports speech in English, French, and Spanish. The only available Braille output is
Nemeth. We are hoping to add more in the future.

In addition to voicing expressions, the explorer allows for queries on sub-expression, such as getting positional infor-
mation with respect to the context, as well as summaries of the sub-expression currently explored.

Abstraction

In addition to textual summaries of expressions, MathJax offers the possibility to abstract certain sub-expressions so
that the entire sub-expression is visually replaced by a placeholder symbol and interactive traversal treats it as a single
element. This allows the reader to abstract away details and to better observe the overall structure of a formula.
Abstraction can be triggered either via mouse click on a collapsible expression or via pressing the Enter key during
keyboard exploration. Expressions that can be abstracted can also be discovered using some of the highlighting
features.

Highlight

During interactive exploration, the sub-expression that is explorered is automatically highlighted, by default with a
blue background color. The highlighting can be customized by changing Background or Foreground colors in in the
Highlight sub-menu of the MathJax contextual menu.
In addition, there is choice of highlighters for marking collapsible sub-expressions: The Flame highligher permanently
colors collapsible sub-expressions while successively darkening the background for nested collapsible expressions.
The Hover highlighter colors each collapsible sub-expression only when hovering over it with the mouse pointer.
A final highlighting feature is Tree Coloring, in which expressions are visually distinguished by giving neighbouring
symbols different, ideally contrasting foreground colors.

Magnification

During exploration, the accessibility extension can optionally magnify the sub-expression that is currently explored.
The zoomed version of the expression is overlayed on the original one when traversing the formula. For keyboard
exploration, this can be switched on in the Magnification sub-menu by selecting the Keyboard option.
A similar effect can be achieved by exploring an expression with the mouse. When using the Mouse option in the
Magnification sub-menu, the sub-expression over which the mouse pointer hovers is zoomed.
The zoom factor of the magnification can also be adjusted. The values available in the context menu are 200%, 300%,
400%, and 500%.

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Semantic Info

The Semantic Info sub-menu contains a number of options that allow the reader to see the semantic classifications
MathJax applies to a particular sub-expression, by hovering over it with the mouse pointer. The choices here are
• Type is an immutable property of an expression that is independent of its particular position in a formula. Note,
however that types can change depending on the subject area of a document.
• Role is dependent on the context of a sub-expression in the overall expression.
• Prefix is information pertaining to the position of a sub-expression. Examples are 'exponent',
'radicand', etc. These would also be spoken during interactive exploration.
For more details on all of these concepts, see also the documentation of the Speech Rule Engine.

2.4.2 Legacy Assistive Support in v2

Interactions between screen readers and MathJax are delicate and vary from browser to broswer, operating system to
operating system, and screen reader to screen reader. The following information was gathered over time for version
2 of MathJax and various broser/operating-system/screen-reader combinations. The information is several years old,
and my no longer be completely accurate, as features in browsers and screen readers change regularly. Because this
inforamtion changes regularly with updates to browsers and screen readers, we are unable to maintin a table like this
for version 3.

Support Matrix (AssistiveMML.js)

Below is a summary of results for MathML enabled screenreaders and the legacy AssistiveMML extension, based on
tests as well as user reports.

Notes on Apple VoiceOver

• VoiceOver on OSX
– Safari. The visually-hidden MathML is read out and gets an outline. Visual rendering is ignored correctly.
VoiceOver somtimes drops parts of the equation due to its partial MathML support.
– Chrome. The visually-hidden MathML is detected but VoiceOver does not read it correctly (only e.g., “4
items detected; math”; this seems like a VO bug); an outline is added. Visual rendering is ignored correctly.
– Firefox. The visually-hidden MathML is only read as a string of contained characters; an outline is added.
Visual rendering is ignored correctly.
• VoiceOver on iOS
– The “slide two fingers from top to read screen” method will read the visually-hidden MathML. Visual
rendering is ignored correctly.
– Manual exploration.

* Exploration by swiping left/right will read the visually-hidden MathML. Visual rendering is ignored
correctly.

* Tapping on an equation does not work due to the visually-hidden MathML being placed in a 1px box.

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Notes on MathPlayer 4 and Internet Explorer 11

Design Science suggests that you always use IE’s Enterprise mode for MathPlayer in IE11, see their documentation.
However, it seems that this is only required for MathPlayer’s visual rendering to work and this additionally requires
the MathPlayer BrowserHelperAddon to be active in IE.
Unfortunately, the MathPlayer BrowserHelperAddon can lead to crashes. E.g., if you switch MathJax’s output to the
NativeMML output, MathPlayer will crash IE11; you’ll have to clear the MathJax cookie to reset things. Also, in a
plain MathML sample (without MathJax), clicking on the MathPlayer rendering will crash IE11.
Using IE’s Enterprise mode should work with NVDA and the AssistiveMML extension but they don’t seem to work
with NVDA and plain MathML pages.
We suggest you do not switch on IE’s Enterprise mode on pages using MathJax and we also have to strongly suggest
that you not use the BrowserHelperAddon with MathJax on IE11.

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 CHAPTER 3

Writing Mathematics for MathJax

3.1 Putting mathematics in a web page

To put mathematics in your web page, you can use TeX and LaTeX notation, MathML notation, AsciiMath notation,
or a combination of all three within the same page; the MathJax configuration tells MathJax which you want to use,
and how you plan to indicate the mathematics when you are using TeX/LaTeX or AsciiMath notation. These three
formats are described in more detail below.

3.1.1 TeX and LaTeX input

Mathematics that is written in TeX or LaTeX format is indicated using math delimiters that surround the mathematics,
telling MathJax what part of your page represents mathematics and what is normal text. There are two types of
equations: ones that occur within a paragraph (in-line mathematics), and larger equations that appear separated from
the rest of the text on lines by themselves (displayed mathematics).
The default math delimiters are $$...$$ and \[...\] for displayed mathematics, and \(...\) for in-line math-
ematics. Note in particular that the $...$ in-line delimiters are not used by default. That is because dollar signs
appear too often in non-mathematical settings, which could cause some text to be treated as mathematics unexpectedly.
For example, with single-dollar delimiters, “. . . the cost is $2.50 for the first one, and $2.00 for each additional one
. . . ” would cause the phrase “2.50 for the first one, and” to be treated as mathematics since it falls between dollar
signs. See the section on TeX and LaTeX Math Delimiters for more information on using dollar signs as delimiters.
Here is a complete sample page containing TeX mathematics (see the MathJax Web Demos Repository for more).

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>MathJax TeX Test Page</title>
<script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-chtml.js">
</script>
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

</head>
<body>
When \(a \ne 0\), there are two solutions to \(ax^2 + bx + c = 0\) and they are
$$x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac} \over 2a}.$$
</body>
</html>

Since the TeX notation is part of the text of the page, there are some caveats that you must keep in mind when you
enter your mathematics. In particular, you need to be careful about the use of less-than signs, since those are what
the browser uses to indicate the start of a tag in HTML. Putting a space on both sides of the less-than sign should be
sufficient, but see TeX and LaTeX support for more details.
If you are using MathJax within a blog, wiki, or other content management system, the markup language used by that
system may interfere with the TeX notation used by MathJax. For example, if your blog uses Markdown notation for
authoring your pages, the underscores used by TeX to indicate subscripts may be confused with the use of underscores
by Markdown to indicate italics, and the two uses may prevent your mathematics from being displayed. See TeX and
LaTeX support for some suggestions about how to deal with the problem.
There are a number of extensions for the TeX input processor that are loaded by combined components that include
the TeX input format (e.g., tex-chtml.js), and others that are loaded automatically when needed. See TeX and
LaTeX Extensions for details on TeX extensions that are available.

3.1.2 MathML input

For mathematics written in MathML notation, you mark your mathematics using standard <math> tags, where <math
display="block"> represents displayed mathematics and <math display="inline"> or just <math>
represents in-line mathematics.
MathML notation will work with MathJax in HTML files, not just XHTML files, even in older browsers and that the
web page need not be served with any special MIME-type. Note, however, that in HTML (as opposed to XHTML),
you should not include a namespace prefix for your <math> tags; for example, you should not use <m:math> except
in an XHTML file where you have tied the m namespace to the MathML DTD by adding the xmlns:m="http://
www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" attribute to your file’s <html> tag.
In order to make your MathML work in the widest range of situations, it is recommended that you include the
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" attribute on all <math> tags in your document (and
this is preferred to the use of a namespace prefix like m: above, since those are deprecated in HTML5), although this
is not strictly required.
Here is a complete sample page containing MathML mathematics (see the MathJax Web Demos Repository for more).

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>MathJax MathML Test Page</title>
<script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/mml-chtml.js">
</script>
</head>
<body>

<p>
When
<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

<mi>a</mi><mo>&#x2260;</mo><mn>0</mn>
</math>,
there are two solutions to
<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
<mi>a</mi><msup><mi>x</mi><mn>2</mn></msup>
<mo>+</mo> <mi>b</mi><mi>x</mi>
<mo>+</mo> <mi>c</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>0</mn>
</math>
and they are
<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="block">
<mi>x</mi> <mo>=</mo>
<mrow>
<mfrac>
<mrow>
<mo>&#x2212;</mo>
<mi>b</mi>
<mo>&#x00B1;</mo>
<msqrt>
<msup><mi>b</mi><mn>2</mn></msup>
<mo>&#x2212;</mo>
<mn>4</mn><mi>a</mi><mi>c</mi>
</msqrt>
</mrow>
<mrow>
<mn>2</mn><mi>a</mi>
</mrow>
</mfrac>
</mrow>
<mtext>.</mtext>
</math>
</p>

</body>
</html>

When entering MathML notation in an HTML page (rather than an XHTML page), you should not use self-closing
tags, as these are not part of HTML, but should use explicit open and close tags for all your math elements. For
example, you should use

<mspace width="5pt"></mspace>

rather than <mspace width="5pt" /> in an HTML document. If you use the self-closing form, some browsers
will not build the math tree properly, and MathJax will receive a damaged math structure, which will not be rendered
as the original notation would have been. Typically, this will cause parts of your expression to not be displayed.
Unfortunately, there is nothing MathJax can do about that, since the browser has incorrectly interpreted the tags long
before MathJax has a chance to work with them.
See the MathML page for more on MathJax’s MathML support.

3.1.3 AsciiMath input

MathJax v2.0 introduced a new input format, AsciiMath notation, by incorporating ASCIIMathML. This input pro-
cessor has not been fully ported to MathJax version 3 yet, but there is a version of it that uses the legacy version 2
code to patch it into MathJax version 3. None of the combined components currently include it, so you would need to
specify it explicitly in your MathJax configuration in order to use it. See the AsciiMath page for more details.

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By default, you mark mathematical expressions written in AsciiMath by surrounding them in “back-ticks”, i.e., `...
`.
Here is a complete sample page containing AsciiMath notation:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>MathJax AsciiMath Test Page</title>
<script>
MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['input/asciimath', 'output/chtml']}
}
</script>
<script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/startup.js">
</script>
<body>

<p>When `a != 0`, there are two solutions to `ax^2 + bx + c = 0` and

they are</p>
<p style="text-align:center">
`x = (-b +- sqrt(b^2-4ac))/(2a) .`
</p>

</body>
</html>

See the AsciiMath support page for more on MathJax’s AsciiMath support and how to configure it.

3.2 Putting Math in Javascript Strings

If your are using javascript to process mathematics, and need to put a TeX or LaTeX expression in a string literal, you
need to be aware that javascript uses the backslash (\) as a special character in strings. Since TeX uses the backslash
to indicate a macro name, you often need backslashes in your javascript strings. In order to achieve this, you must
double all the backslashes that you want to have as part of your javascript string. For example,

var math = '\\frac{1}{\\sqrt{x^2 + 1}}';

This can be particularly confusing when you are using the LaTeX macro \, which must both be doubled, as \. So you
would do

var array = '\\begin{array}{cc} a & b \\\\ c & d \\end{array}';

to produce an array with two rows.

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 CHAPTER 4

The MathJax Community

If you are an active MathJax user, you may wish to become involved in the wider community of MathJax users.
The MathJax project maintains forums where users can ask questions about how to use MathJax, make suggestions
about future features for MathJax, and present their own solutions to problems that they have faced. There is also a
bug-tracking system where you can report errors that you have found with MathJax in your environment.

4.1 Mailing Lists

If you need help using MathJax or you have solutions you want to share, please post to the MathJax Users Google
Group. We try hard to answer questions quickly, and users are welcome to help with that as well. Also, users can post
code snippets showing how they have used MathJax, so it may be a good place to find the examples you are looking
for.
If you want to discuss MathJax development, please use the MathJax Dev Google Group. We made this group to
discuss anything beyond what an end-user might be interested in, so if you have any suggestions or questions about
MathJax performance, technology, or design, feel free to submit it to the group.
The community is only as good as the users who participate, so if you have something to offer, please take time to
make a post on one of our groups.

4.2 Issue tracking

Found a bug or want to suggest an improvement? Post it to our issue tracker. We monitor the tracker closely, and work
hard to respond to problems quickly.
Before you create a new issue, however, please search the issues to see if it has already been reported. You could also
be using an outdated version of MathJax, so be sure to upgrade your copy to verify that the problem persists in the
latest version.
See the section on Reporting Issues for more detailed instructions.

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4.3 Documentation

The source for this documentation can be found on github. You can file bug reports on the documentation’s bug tracker
and actively contribute to the public documentation wiki.

4.4 “Powered by MathJax”

If you are using MathJax and want to show your support, please consider using our “Powered by MathJax” badge.

16 Chapter 4. The MathJax Community

 CHAPTER 5

Reporting Issues

If you come across a problem with MathJax, please report it so that the development team and other users are aware
and can look into it. It is important that you report your problem following the steps outlined here because this will
help us to rapidly establish the nature of the problem and work towards a solution effectively.
To report a problem, please follow these steps:
• Have you cleared your browser cache, quit your browser, and restarted it? If not, please do so first and check if
the problem persists. These instructions tell you how to clear your cache on the major browsers.
• Have you turned off other extensions and plugins in your browser, and restarted it?
• Have a look at the math rendering examples on www.mathjax.org to see if you experience problems there as
well. This might help you to determine the nature of your problem.
• If possible, check whether the problem has been solved in the latest MathJax release.
• Search through the MathJax User Group and the MathJax issue tracker to see if anyone else has come across the
problem before.
• Found a real and new problem? Please report it to the MathJax issue tracker including the following information:
– A detailed description of the problem. What exactly is not working as you expected? What do you see?
– The MathJax version you are working with, your operating system, and full browser information including
all version information.
– If at all possible, a pointer to a webpage that is publicly available and exhibits the problem. This makes
sure that we can reproduce the problem and test possible solutions. You can create minimal examples
using such tools as jsfiddle, jsbin, codepen, or codesandbox.

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18 Chapter 5. Reporting Issues

 CHAPTER 6

Getting Started with MathJax Components

MathJax allows you to include mathematics in your web pages, either using LaTeX, MathML, or AsciiMath notation,
and the mathematics will be processed using JavaScript to produce HTML or SVG for viewing in any modern browser.

6.1 MathJax Components

To make using MathJax easier in web pages, the various pieces that make up MathJax have been packaged into separate
files called “components”. For example, there is a component for MathML input, and one for SVG output, and the
various TeX extensions are packaged as separate components. You can mix and match the various components to
customize MathJax to suit your particular needs (this is described in detail in the section on Configuring MathJax
below); the individual component files that you specify are loaded when MathJax starts up.
There are also components that combine several others into one larger file that loads everything you need to run
MathJax all at once. These represent some of the standard combinations of input and output formats, and you will
probably find one of these that suits your needs. You can configure the various components in order to customize how
they run, even when they are loaded as part of a combined component. For example, you can set the delimiters to be
used for in-line and displayed math for the TeX input component whether the TeX component was loaded individually,
or as part of the tex-chtml component.
It is even possible for you to create your own components or custom builds of MathJax, or incorporate the MathJax
components into larger files that contain other assets your website might need (see the section on Making a Custom
Build of MathJax for more details).

6.2 Ways of Accessing MathJax

There are two ways to access MathJax for inclusion in web pages: link to a content delivery network (CDN) like
cdn.jsdelivr.net to obtain a copy of MathJax, or download and install a copy of MathJax on your own server
(for network access) or hard disk (for local use without a network connection). The first method is described below,
while the second is discussed in the section on Hosting Your Own Copy of MathJax.

19
MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

This page gives the quickest and easiest ways to get MathJax up and running on your web site, but you may want to
read the details in the linked sections in order to customize the setup for your pages.

6.2.1 Using MathJax from a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

The easiest way to use MathJax is to link directly to a public installation available through a Content Distribution
Network (CDN). When you use a CDN, there is no need to install MathJax yourself, and you can begin using MathJax
right away. The CDN will automatically arrange for your readers to download MathJax files from a fast, nearby server.
To use MathJax from a CDN, you need to do three things:
1. Include a MathJax configuration in your page (this may be optional in some cases).
2. Link to MathJax in the web pages that are to include mathematics.
3. Put mathematics into your web pages so that MathJax can display it.
There are many free CDN services that provide copies of MathJax. Most of them require you to specify a particular
version of MathJax to load, but some provide “rolling releases”, i.e., links that update to the latest available version
upon release (note that we also provide a means of obtaining the latest version automatically, described below).
• jsdelivr.com [latest or specific version] (recommended)
• unpkg.com [latest or specific version]
• cdnjs.com
• raw.githack.com
• gitcdn.xyz
• cdn.statically.io
To jump start using jsdelivr, you accomplish the first two steps by putting

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-mml-chtml.js">
</script>

into the <head> block of your document. (It can also go in the <body> if necessary, but the head is to be preferred.)
This will load the latest 3.x.x version of MathJax from the distributed server, configure it to recognize mathematics in
both TeX and MathML notation, and ask it to generate its output using HTML with CSS (the CommonHTML output
format) to display the mathematics.

Warning: The tex-mml-chtml.js file includes all the pieces needed for MathJax to process these two input
formats and produce this output format. There are several other choices with different input/output combinations,
and and you can even configure MathJax to load components individually.
We list this file here because it will get you started quickly with MathJax without having to worry too much about
configurations; but since it is one of the most general of the combined component files, it is also one of the largest,
so you might want to consider a smaller one that is more tailored to your needs. See the section on Configuring and
Loading MathJax for more details on how this is done, and on The MathJax Components for information about the
components themselves.

If you use the code snippet given above, you will not need to change the URL whenever MathJax is updated and the
version changes, because jsdelivr offers the mathjax@3 notation for obtaining the tex-mml-chtml.js file
from the latest version (3.x.x) available on the CDN.

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 MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

6.2.2 Getting the Latest Version

Although jsdelivr provides a means of getting the latest version automatically, as described above, not all CDNs
have a mechanism for that. For such CDNs, MathJax provides a latest.js file that can be used to obtain the
latest (3.x.x) version of MathJax. For example, cdnjs doesn’t have a mechanism for getting the latest 3.x.x version
automatically, so you can use

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/3.0.0/es5/latest?tex-mml-chtml.
˓→js">

</script>

to obtain the latest (3.x.x) version of the tex-mml-chtml component from cdnjs; even though you have started
by asking for version 3.0.0, the latest.js script will switch to the latest 3.x.x version automatically.

6.2.3 Getting a Specific Version

It is also possible to always use a specific version, regardless of the current version of MathJax. To do this, simply
give the full version number in the URL; for example:

<script id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/es5/tex-mml-chtml.js">
</script>

will always load version 3.0.0 of the tex-mml-chtml.js combined component file.
Other CDNs have slightly different formats for how to specify the version number. For example, cdnjs uses the
following:

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/3.0.0/es5/tex-mml-chtml.js">
</script>

to get the same file.

6.2.4 Browser Compatibility

MathJax supports all modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge), and most mobile browsers. Include the polyfill
library in order to support earlier browser versions (see their browser support page for details). In particular, to allow
MathJax version 3 to work with IE11, include the line

<script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6"></script>

before the script that loads MathJax.

6.3 Configuring MathJax

The combined component files, like tex-mml-chtml.js, include default settings for the various options available
in MathJax. You may need to adjust those to suit your needs. For example, the TeX input component does not enable
single dollar signs as delimiters for in-line mathematics because single dollar signs appear frequently in normal text,

6.3. Configuring MathJax 21

MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

e.g. “The price is $50 for the first one, and $40 for each additional one”, and it would be confusing the have “50 for
the first one, and” be typeset as mathematics.
If you wish to enable single dollar signs as in-line math delimiters, you need to tell MathJax that by providing an
explicit MathJax configuration. That is accomplished by using a <script> tag to set the MathJax global variable
to hold a configuration for MathJax and placing that script before the one that loads the MathJax component file that
you are using. For example
<script>
MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
}
};
</script>
<script id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-chtml.js">
</script>

configures MathJax’s TeX input component to use $...$ and \(...\) as delimiters for inline-math (this enabling
single dollar signs as math delimiters), and then loads the tex-chtml.js component for TeX input and Common-
HTML output.
There are many options that can be set in this way. See the section on Configuring and Loading MathJax for more
details, and on Configuring MathJax for information on the available options for the various components.

6.4 Putting Mathematics in a Web Page

Once MathJax is configured and loaded, it will look through your web page for mathematics for it to process. There are
three available formats for that mathematics: TeX/LaTeX, MathML, and AsciiMath. The TeX/LaTeX and AsciiMath
formats are plain text formats that use special delimiter characters to separate the mathematics from the rest of the text
of your document, while the MathML format is an XML format that uses “tags” (similar to HTML tags) to represent
the mathematics. TeX and AsciiMath are often written by hand, but MathML usually is generated by mathematical
software or specialized editors.
See the section on Writing Mathematics for MathJax for more details about how to enter mathematics in these three
formats.
Note that once MathJax has processed the page, it will not not run again without you explicitly telling it to. For
example, if you add new mathematics to the page after MathJax has already run, that math will not be processed by
MathJax until you request that to happen. See the section on MathJax in Dynamic Content for details of how to do
that.

6.5 Where to Go from Here?

If you have followed the instructions above, you should now have MathJax installed and configured on your web
server, and you should be able to use it to write web pages that include mathematics. At this point, you can start
making pages that contain mathematical content!
You could also read more about the details of how to customize MathJax.
You can also check out the MathJax examples for illustrations of using MathJax.

22 Chapter 6. Getting Started with MathJax Components

 MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

If you are working on dynamic pages that include mathematics, you might want to read about the MathJax Application
Programming Interface (its API), so you know how to include mathematics in your interactive pages.
Finally, if you have questions or comments, or want to help support MathJax, you could visit the MathJax community
forums or the MathJax bug tracker.

6.5. Where to Go from Here? 23

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24 Chapter 6. Getting Started with MathJax Components

 CHAPTER 7

Configuring and Loading MathJax

The configuration, loading, and startup processes for MathJax version 3 are different from those of version 2 in a
number of ways. Where version 2 had several different methods for configuring MathJax, version 3 streamlines
the process and has only one, as described below. In version 2, you always loaded MathJax.js, and added a
config=... parameter to provide a combined configuration file, but in version 3 you load one of several different
files, depending on your needs (so you can avoid multiple file transfers, and also use MathJax synchronously, which
was not possible in version 2).
If you use one of the combined component files in version 3, like mml-chtml, you may not need to do any configu-
ration at all.

7.1 Configuring MathJax

To configure MathJax, you use a global object named MathJax that contains configuration data for the various com-
ponents of MathJax. For example, to configure the TeX input component to use single dollar signs as in-line math
delimiters (in addition to the usual \(...\) delimiters) and the SVG output component to use a global font cache
for all expressions on the page, you would use

MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache: 'global'
}
};

The sections below describe the different places you could put such a configuration. For information on the options
that you can set for each of the components, see the Configuring MathJax pages.

25
MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

7.1.1 Configuration Using an In-Line Script

The easiest way to configure MathJax is to place the MathJax object in a <script> tag just before the script that
loads MathJax itself. For example:

<script>
MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache: 'global'
}
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-svg.js">
</script>

This will configure the TeX input component to use single dollar signs as in-line math delimiters, and the SVG output
component to use a global font cache (rather than a separate cache for each expression on the page), and then loads
the latest version of the tex-svg component file from the jsdelivr CDN. This will typeset any TeX mathematics
on the page, producing SVG versions of the expressions.

7.1.2 Using a Local File for Configuration

If you are using the same MathJax configuration over multiple pages, you may find it convenient to store your
configuration in a separate JavaScript file that you load into the page. For example, you could create a file called
mathjax-config.js that contains

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache: 'global'
}
};

and then use

<script src="mathjax-config.js" defer></script>

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" defer
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-svg.js">
</script>

to first load your configuration file, and then load the tex-svg component from the jsdelivr CDN.
Note that here we use the defer attribute on both scripts so that they will execute in order, but still not block the
rest of the page while the files are being downloaded to the browser. If the async attribute were used, there is no
guarantee that the configuration would run first, and so you could get instances where MathJax doesn’t get properly
configured, and they would seem to occur randomly.

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 MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

7.1.3 Configuring and Loading in One Script

It is possible to have the MathJax configuration file also load MathJax as well, which would be another way
to handle the problem of synchronizing the two scripts described above. For example, you could make the file
load-mathjax.js containing

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache: 'global'
}
};

(function () {
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.src = 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-svg.js';
script.async = true;
document.head.appendChild(script);
})();

and then simply link to that file via

<script src="load-mathjax.js" async></script>

This script can be async because it doesn’t have to synchronize with any other script. This will allow it to run as soon
as it loads (since it is small, there is little cost to that), meaning the script to load MathJax itself will be inserted as soon
as possible, so that MathJax can begin downloading as early as possible. (If this script were loaded with defer, it
would not run until the page was ready, so the script to load MathJax would not be inserted until then, and you would
have to wait for MathJax to be downloaded before it could run.)

7.1.4 Converting Your v2 Configuration to v3

Because the version 3 configuration options are somewhat different from their version 2 counterparts, we provide an
automated configuration conversion tool to help you move from version 2 to version 3. Simply paste your current
MathJax.Hub.Config() call into the converter, press Convert and you should get the equivalent version 3
configuration, and comments about any options that could not be translated to version 3 (some options are not yet
implements, others no longer make sense in version 3). See the instructions on the linked page for more details.

7.2 Loading MathJax

Once you have configured MathJax, you then load the MathJax component file that you want to use. Most often,
this will mean you load a combined component that loads everything you need to run MathJax with a particular input
and output format. For example, the tex-svg component would allow you to process TeX input and produce SVG
output. To do so, use a script like the following

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-svg.js">
</script>

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MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

to get the latest (3.x.x) version of the tex-svg component in ES5 format (the only one currently available) from the
jsdelivr CDN. This takes advantage of the feature of jsdeliver that allows you to get the latest version using
the mathjax@3 notation. For a specific version, you would use

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/es5/tex-svg.js">
</script>

to always get the 3.0.0 version of the tex-svg component.

Other CDNs have slightly different formats for how to specify the version number. For example, cdnjs uses the
following:

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/3.0.0/es5/tex-svg.js">
</script>

Some CDNs don’t provide a means of getting the lastest version automatically. For these, MathJax provides a
latest.js file that will do that for you. For example, cdnjs doesn’t have a mechanism for getting the latest
3.x.x version automtically. If you want to do that using cdnjs, then use

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/3.0.0/es5/latest?tex-svg.js">
</script>

to obtain the latest (3.x.x) version of the tex-svg component.

See The MathJax Components for a list of the various components you can choose and descriptions of their contents.
See the list of CDNs for the URLs for a number of CDNs that serve MathJax.
Note that the script that loads the MathJax component file should follow the script the configures MathJax (otherwise
MathJax will not know what configuration you need). If you use one of the combined component files in version 3,
you may not need to do any configuration at all.

7.2.1 Loading Components Individually

If none of the combined component files suits your needs, you can specify the individual components you want by
setting the load array in the loader section of your MathJax configuration and loading the startup component.
For example

<script>
MathJax = {
loader: {
load: ['input/tex-base', 'output/svg', 'ui/menu', '[tex]/require']
},
tex: {
packages: ['base', 'require']
}
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/es5/startup.js">
</script>

would cause the base TeX input, the SVG output, the contextual menu code, and the TeX \require macro extension
components to be loaded (and would tell TeX to use the require extension in addition to the base TeX macros).

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 MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

In this way, you can load exactly the components you want. Note, however, that each component will be loaded as a
separate file, so it is better to use a combined component file if possible.

7.2.2 Loading Additional Components

You can use the load array described in the previous section to load additional components even if you are using one
of the combined components. For example

<script>
MathJax = {
loader: {
load: ['[tex]/colorV2']
},
tex: {
packages: {'[+]': 'colorV2'},
autoload: {color: []}
}
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/es5/tex-chtml.js">
</script>

would load the version-2-compatible \color macro, inform TeX to add that to the packages that it already has loaded,
and not autoload the default version 3 color (the LaTeX-compatible one). This is done on top of the tex-chtml
combined configuration file, so the TeX input and CommonHTML output formats are already included (as are the
contextual menu, and several TeX packages; see The MathJax Components for details).

7.3 Performing Actions During Startup

MathJax allows you several ways to hook into the MathJax startup process so that you can do additional configuration,
perform actions after the initial typesetting, and so on. Because MathJax version 3 uses promises for its synchroniza-
tion, they are what MathJax provides in order for you to hook into the startup process. There are two main hooks that
you can set in the startup block of your configuration: the ready() function and the pageReady() function.
The ready() function is what MathJax calls when all the components of MathJax have been loaded. It builds
the internal structures needed by MathJax, creates functions in the MathJax object to make typesetting and format
conversion easy for you, performs the initial typesetting call, and sets up a promise for when that is complete. You
can override the ready() function with one of your own to override the startup process completely, or to perform
actions before or after the usual initialization. For example, you could do additional setup before MathJax created the
objects it needs, or you could hook into the typesetting promise to synchronize other actions with the completion of
the initial typesetting. Examples of these are given below.
The pageReady() function is performed when MathJax is ready (all its components are loaded, and the inter-
nal objects have been created), and the page itself is ready (i.e., it is OK to typeset the page). The default is for
pageReady() to perform the initial typesetting of the page, but you can override that to perform other actions in-
stead, such as delaying the initial typesetting while other content is loaded dynamically, for example. The ready()
function sets up the call to pageReady() as part of its default action.
Using these two functions separately or in combination gives you full control over the actions that MathJax takes
when it starts up, and allows you to customize MathJax’s startup process to suit your needs. Several examples are
given below for common situations.

7.3. Performing Actions During Startup 29

MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

7.3.1 Performing Actions During Initialization

If you want to perform actions after MathJax has loaded all the needed components, you can set the ready() function
to a function that does the needed actions, and then calls MathJax.startup.defaultReady() to perform the
usual startup process.
Actions coming before the MathJax.startup.defaultReady() call are run before any initialization has been
done. In particular, this is before any input or output jax are created, so this is where customization of the MathJax
object definitions could be performed. For example, you could modify the configuration blocks at this point, or you
could create subclasses of the MathJax objects that override some of their methods to produce custom behavior, and
then register those subclasses with MathJax so they will be used in place of the originals.
Actions coming after the MathJax.startup.defaultReady() call are run after initialization is complete. In
particular, all the internal objects used by MathJax (e.g., the input and output jax, the math document, the DOM adap-
tor, etc) will have been created, and the typesetting and conversion methods will have been created in the MathJax
object. Also the MathJax.startup.promise value will hold a promise that is resolved when the initial typeset-
ting is complete, but note that the typesetting has not yet been performed at this point.
window.MathJax = {
startup: {
ready: () => {
console.log('MathJax is loaded, but not yet initialized');
MathJax.startup.defaultReady();
console.log('MathJax is initialized, and the initial typeset is queued');
}
}
};

The next section shows how to use the MathJax.startup.promise to synchronize with the initial typesetting
action.

7.3.2 Performing Actions After Typesetting

Often, you may need to wait for MathJax to finish typesetting the page before you perform some action. To accomplish
this, you can override the ready() function, having it perform the MathJax.startup.defaultReady()
action, and then use the MathJax.startup.promise to queue your actions; these will be performed after the
initial typesetting is complete.
window.MathJax = {
startup: {
ready: () => {
MathJax.startup.defaultReady();
MathJax.startup.promise.then(() => {
console.log('MathJax initial typesetting complete');
});
}
}
};

7.4 Configuring MathJax After it is Loaded

The global variable MathJax is used to store the configuration for MathJax. Once MathJax is loaded, however,
MathJax changes the MathJax variable to contain the various methods needed to control MathJax. The initial con-

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 MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

figuration that you provided is moved to the MathJax.config property so that its contents doesn’t conflict with
the new values provides in MathJax. This occurs when the MathJax component you have requested is loaded (and
before the ready() function is called).
Once MathJax has created the objects that it needs (like the input and output jax), changes to the configuration may
not have any effect, as the configuration values were used during the creation of the objects, and that is already
complete. Most objects make a copy of their configuration from your original MathJax object, so changing the
values in MathJax.config after the objects are created will not change their configurations. (You can change
MathJax.config values for objects that haven’t been created yet, but not for ones that have.)
For some objects, like input and output jax, document handlers, and math documents, the local copies of the config-
uration settings are stored in the options property of the object, and you may be able to set the value there. For
example, MathJax.startup.output.options.scale is the scaling value for the output, and you can set that
at any time to affect any subsequent typeset calls.
Note that some options are moved to sub-objects when the main object is created. For example, with the TeX input jax,
the inlineMath and similar options are used to create a FindTeX object that is stored at MathJax.startup.
input[0].findTeX; but in this case, the FindTeX object uses the configuration once when it is created, so
changing MathJax.startup.input[0].findTeX.options will not affect it. (There is a getPatterns()
method if the FindTeX object that could be used to refresh the object if the options are changed, however.)
If you need to change the configuration for an object whose options can’t be changed once it is created, then you will
need to create a new version of that object after you change the configuration. For example, if you change MathJax.
config.tex.inlineMath after MathJax has started up, that will not affect the TeX input jax, as described above.
In this case, you can call MathJax.startup.getComponents() to ask MathJax to recreate all the internal
objects (like MathJax.startup.input). This will cause them to be created using the new configuration options.
Note, however, that MathJax will no longer know about any mathematics that has already been typeset, as that data
was stored in the objects that have been discarded when the new ones are created.

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 CHAPTER 8

The MathJax Components

In order to make it possible to customize what parts of MathJax you include in your web pages, the MathJax code
has been broken into individual pieces, called “components”. These are designed to share common code, so that you
don’t download the same thing more than once, while still making it possible to only download the parts that you
need. There are individual components for the various input and output processors in MathJax, for the various TeX
extensions, for the contextual menu, and for other specialized pieces, such as the assistive technology support. These
can be mixed and matched in whatever combinations you need.
There are some obvious combinations of components, for example, TeX input together with SVG output, or MathML
input with CommonHTML output. MathJax provides a number of these common combinations as complete packages
that contain everything you need to run mathjax in your page in a single file, though you can also configure additional
extensions to be loaded as well.
Components provide a great deal of flexibility in determining the pieces of MathJax that you use. You can even make
your own custom builds of MathJax that package exactly the pieces and that you want to use. See Making a Custom
Build of MathJax for more details about how to do that.
See the Loading MathJax section for details about how to specify and load MathJax components.
See the Configuring MathJax section for details about how to configure the various MathJax components.

8.1 Combined Components

Currently there are eight combined components, whose contents are described below:
• tex-chtml
• tex-chtml-full
• tex-svg
• tex-svg-full
• tex-mml-chtml

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• tex-mml-svg
• mml-chtml
• mml-svg
The combined components include everything needed to run MathJax in your web pages. Each includes at least one
input processor, an output processor, the data needed for the MathJax TeX font, the contextual menu code, and the
startup component.
Unlike the other components, these combined components should be loaded directly via a <script> tag, not through
the load array in your MathJax configuration. So a typical use would be
<script>
MathJax = {
// your configuration here, if needed
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-chtml.js">
</script>

to load the tex-chtml component, for example.

8.1.1 tex-chtml

The tex-chtml component loads the input/tex component and the output/chtml, along with the contextual menu com-
ponent, and the startup component.
The input/tex component loads the ams, newcommand, require, autoload, configMacros, and noundefined extensions,
which that means most other extensions will be loaded automatically when needed, or you can use the \require
macro to load them explicitly.

8.1.2 tex-chtml-full

The tex-chtml-full component loads the input/tex-full component and the output/chtml, along with the contextual menu
component, and the startup component.
The input/tex-full component loads the the code for all the TeX extensions, and configures TeX to use all but the
physics and colorV2 extensions.

8.1.3 tex-svg

The tex-svg component loads the input/tex component and the output/svg, along with the contextual menu component,
and the startup component.
The input/tex component loads the ams, newcommand, require, autoload, configMacros, and noundefined extensions,
which that means most other extensions will be loaded automatically when needed, or you can use the \require
macro to load them explicitly.

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8.1.4 tex-svg-full

The tex-svg-full component loads the input/tex-full component and the output/svg, along with the contextual menu
component, and the startup component.
The input/tex-full component loads the the code for all the TeX extensions, and configures TeX to use all but the
physics and colorV2 extensions.

8.1.5 tex-mml-chtml

The tex-mml-chtml component loads the input/tex and input/mathml components and the output/chtml, along with the
contextual menu component, and the startup component.
The input/tex component loads the ams, newcommand, require, autoload, configMacros, and noundefined extensions,
which that means most other extensions will be loaded automatically when needed, or you can use the \require
macro to load them explicitly.

8.1.6 tex-mml-svg

The tex-mml-svg component loads the input/tex and input/mathml components and the output/svg, along with the
contextual menu component, and the startup component.
The input/tex component loads the ams, newcommand, require, autoload, configMacros, and noundefined extensions,
which that means most other extensions will be loaded automatically when needed, or you can use the \require
macro to load them explicitly.

8.1.7 mml-chtml

The mml-chtml component loads the input/mathml component and the output/chtml, along with the contextual menu
component, and the startup component.

8.1.8 mml-svg

The mml-svg component loads the input/mathml component and the output/svg, along with the contextual menu com-
ponent, and the startup component.

8.2 Input Components

Currently there are three MathJax input formats, each packaged into its own component.
• input/tex
• input/mathml
• input/asciimath

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These are described in more detail below. See the Input Processor Options section for details about configuring these
components.

8.2.1 input/tex

The TeX input format is packaged in three different ways, depending on which extensions are included in the compo-
nent. This gives you several possible trade-offs between file size and feature completeness. See the TeX and LaTeX
input section for details about the TeX input processor.
When you include one of the TeX input components, MathJax will define a function to convert TeX strings into the
output format that has been loaded. See the Converting a Math String to Other Formats section for details.

input/tex

This is the standard TeX input component. It includes the main TeX/LaTeX input parser, along with the base defi-
nitions for the most common macros and environments. It also includes the ams, newcommand, require, autoload,
configMacros, and noundefined extensions. The remaining extensions (other than physics and colorV2) are loaded
automatically when needed, or you can use \require to load any of them explicitly. This will cause the extensions
to be loaded dynamically, so if you are calling MathJax’s typesetting or conversion methods yourself, you should use
the promise-based versions in order to handle that properly.
See the TeX Input Processor Options section for information about configuring this component.

input/tex-full

This is the most complete TeX input component. It includes the main TeX/LaTeX input parser, along with all the
TeX extensions, and is configured to enable all of them other than physics and colorV2. You can add these two to the
packages array in the tex section of your MathJax configuration, though you should remove the color extension if
you add the colorV2 extension, and should remove the braket extension if you enable the physics package.
See the TeX Input Processor Options section for information about configuring this component.

input/tex-base

This is a minimal TeX input component. It includes the main TeX/LaTeX input parser, along with the base definitions
for the most common macros and environments. No other extensions are included, so no extensions are autoloaded,
and you can not use \require. For this component, you must explicitly load the extensions you want to use, and
add them to the packages array.
See the TeX Input Processor Options section for information about configuring this component.

TeX Extension Packages

Each of the TeX extensions listed in the The TeX/LaTeX Extension List has its own component. The name of the
component is the name of the extension preceded by [tex]/; so the component for the enclose extension is
[tex]/enclose. You can include any of the extension components in the load array of the loader section of
your MathJax configuration, and add the extension to the packages array in the tex block. For example:

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window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/enclose']},
tex: {
packages: {'[+]', ['enclose']}
}
};

Of course, if you are using one of the packages that includes the autoload extension, then you don’t have to load the
extensions explicitly (except for physics and colorV2), as they will be loaded automatically when first used.
In addition, there is a [tex]/all-packages component that includes all the packages, and configures the TeX
input processors to include all of them except physics and colorV2. The input/tex-base and [tex]/all-packages compo-
nents together are effectively the same as the input/tex-full component.
See the TeX Extension Options section for information about configuring the TeX extensions.

8.2.2 input/mathml

The input/mathml component contains the MathML input processor, including the function that identifies MathML
within the page. See the MathML input section for details concerning the MathML input processor. When you include
the input/mathml component, MathJax will define a function to convert serialized MathML strings into the output
format that has been loaded. See the Converting a Math String to Other Formats section for details.
• See the MathML Support section for details about MathML output.
• See the MathML Input Processor Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.2.3 input/asciimath

The input/asciimath component contains the AsciiMath input processor, including the function that identifies Asci-
iMath within the page. See AsciiMath input section or details concerning the AsciiMath input processor. When you
include the input/asciimath component, MathJax will define a function to convert AsciiMath strings into the output
format that has been loaded. See the Converting a Math String to Other Formats section for details.
See the AsciiMath Input Processor Options section for information about configuring this component.

Note: The AsciiMath input jax has not been fully ported to version 3 yet. The AsciiMath component includes legacy
MathJax 2 code patched into the MathJax 3 framework. That makes the AsciiMath component larger than usual, and
slower than the other input components.

8.3 Output Components

Currently there are two MathJax output formats, each packaged into its own component.
• output/chtml
• output/svg

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These are described in more detail below.

Note: The NativeMML output jax from version 2 has not been ported to version 3, and is unlikely to be. See the
MathML Support section for details.

8.3.1 output/chtml

The output/chtml component includes the CommonHTML output processor. When loaded, it causes data for handling
the MathJax TeX font to be loaded as well (via a separate component). Currently, this is the only font available in
version 3 (see the MathJax Font Support section for more information). The output/chtml/fonts/tex component holds
the font data.
• See the HTML Support section for details on the CommonHTML output processor.
• See the CommonHTML Output Processor Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.3.2 output/svg

The output/svg component includes the SVG output processor. When loaded, it causes data for handling the MathJax
TeX font to be loaded as well (via a separate component). Currently, this is the only font available in version 3 (see
the MathJax Font Support section for more information). The output/svg/fonts/tex component holds the font data.
• See the SVG Support section for details on the CommonHTML output processor.
• See the SVG Output Processor Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.4 Accessibility Components

Currently, there are three components designed specifically to support assistive technology.
• a11y/semantic-enrich
• a11y/complexity
• a11y/explorer
• a11y/assistive-mml-component
These are described below.

Note: The auto-collapse extension has not yet been converted to version 3, but will be in a future release.

Note: The assistive-menu extension is now part of the standard contextual menu extension, so doesn’t have to be
loaded separately.

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8.4.1 a11y/semantic-enrich

The semantic-enrich component connects MathJax with the Speech Rule Engine, which allows MathJax to generate
speech strings for the mathematics that it processes. These can be attached to the output for use by screen readers, or
for use with the a11y/explorer component described below.
See the Semantic-Enrich Extension Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.4.2 a11y/complexity

The complexity component computes a complexity measure for each element within an expression, and allows complex
expressions to “collapse” to make them both shorter, and simpler to read. The collapsed portions can be expanded
with a click of the mouse, or by keyboard actions when using the a11y/explorer extension described below.
See the Complexity Extension Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.4.3 a11y/explorer

The explorer component allows readers to explore a mathematical expression interactively. When an expression is
focused (by tabbing to it, or by clicking on it), a reader can “enter” the expression by pressing shift-space on the
keyboard. The arrow keys then move the reader through the expression (down moves to more detail by selecting
the first subexpression of the selected expression, up moves to more complete expressions, while left and right move
through the sub-expressions at the current level). See the Accessibility Features section for more details about using
the expression explorer and its various features.
See the Explorer Extension Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.4.4 a11y/assistive-mml-component

The assistive-mml component embeds visually hidden MathML alongside MathJax’s visual rendering while hiding the
visual rendering from assistive technology (AT) such as screenreaders. This allows most MathML-enabled screenread-
ers to read out the underlying mathematics. It’s important to note that Presentation MathML is usually not expressive
enough to voice the mathematics properly in all circumstances, which is why screenreaders have to rely on heuristics
to analyze the MathML semantically. See the Screen Reader Support section for more details about screen reader
support via the assistive-mml extension.
See the Assisitve-MML Extension Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.5 Miscellaneous Components

There are several miscellaneous components that don’t fit into other categories. These are:
• startup
• ui/menu
• adaptors/liteDOM

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• core
• loader
They are described in more detail below.

8.5.1 startup

The startup component is the one that you would use if you are not using a combined component, but are using the
load array to specify the components you want to load. Like a combined component, you would load this directly
via a <script> tag, as in

<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async

src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/startup.js">
</script>

This is the component that manages the global MathJax object. It is responsible for creating the needed objects (like
the input and output jax), and for adding the typesetting and conversion methods described in the Typesetting and
Converting Mathematics section.
See the Startup Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.5.2 ui/menu

The ui/menu component implements the MathJax contextual menu, which allows you to obtain the MathML or original
format of the mathematics, change parameters about the output renderer, enable accessibility features, and so on.
See the Contextual Menu Options section for information about configuring this component.

8.5.3 adaptors/liteDOM

The adaptors/liteDOM component implements an alternative to the browser DOM that can be used to parse HTML
pages outside of a browser. This can be used in Node applications that don’t have access to a browser DOM, or in
webworkers that can’t access the document DOM.

8.5.4 core

The core component includes the code that is required for all other components, including the base classes for input
and output jax, math documents, math items within those documents, DOM adaptors, and so on. This component is
loaded automatically when needed, so you don’t usually have to load it yourself. But you can include it if you are
creating your own combined component.

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8.5.5 loader

The loader component contains the code needed to load other components. It is included automatically by the startup
component, but if you don’t want the features created by the startup module, you can use the loader component instead
to load the MathJax component you need. You can even use it as a general loader for other javascript, if you want.
See the Loader Options section for information about configuring this component.

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42 Chapter 8. The MathJax Components

 CHAPTER 9

Typesetting and Converting Mathematics

There are two main uses for MathJax:

• Typesetting all the mathematics within a web page, and
• Converting a string containing mathematics into another form.
In version 2, MathJax could perform the first function very well, but it was much harder to do the second. MathJax
version 3 makes both easy to do. Both these tasks are described below.

9.1 Typesetting Math in a Web Page

MathJax makes it easy to typeset all the math in a web page, and in fact it will do this automatically when it is first
loaded unless you configure it not to. So this is one of the easiest actions to perform in MathJax; if your page is static,
there is nothing to do but load MathJax.
If your page is dynamic, and you may be adding math after the page is loaded, then you will need to tell MathJax to
typeset the mathematics once it has been inserted into the page. There are two methods for doing that: MathJax.
typeset() and MathJax.typesetPromise().
The first of these, MathJax.typeset(), typesets the page, and does so immediately and synchronously, so when
the call finishes, the page will have been typeset. Note, however, that if the math includes actions that require additional
files to be loaded (e.g., TeX input that uses require, or that includes autoloaded extensions), then an error will be
thrown. You can use the try/catch command to trap this condition.
The second, Mathjax.typesetPromise(), performs the typesetting asynchronously, and returns a promise that
is resolved when the typesetting is complete. This properly handles loading of external files, so if you are expecting
to process TeX input that can include require or autoloaded extensions, you should use this form of typesetting. It can
be used with await as part of a larger async function.
Both functions take an optional argument, which is an array of elements whose content should be processed. An
element can be either an actual DOM element, or a CSS selector string for an element or collection of elements.
Supplying an array of elements will restrict the typesetting to the contents of those elements only.

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9.1.1 Handling Asynchronous Typesetting

It is generally a bad idea to try to perform multiple asynchronous typesetting calls simultaneously, so if you are using
MathJax.typesetPromise() to make several typeset calls, you should chain them using the promises they
return. For example:

MathJax.typesetPromise().then(() => {
// modify the DOM here
MathJax.typesetPromise();
}).catch((err) => console.log(err.message));

This approach can get complicated fast, however, so you may want to maintain a promise that can be used to chain the
later typesetting calls. For example,

let promise = Promise.resolve(); // Used to hold chain of typesetting calls

function typeset(code) {
promise = promise.then(() => {code(); return MathJax.typesetPromise()})
.catch((err) => console.log('Typeset failed: ' + err.message));
return promise;
}

Then you can use typeset() to run code that changes the DOM and typesets the result. The code() that you pass
it does the DOM modifications and returns the array of elements to typeset, or null to typeset the whole page. E.g.,

typeset(() => {
const math = document.querySelector('#math');
math.innerHTML = '$$\\frac{a}{1-a^2}$$';
return math;
});

would replace the contents of the element with id="math" with the specified fraction and have MathJax typeset it
(asynchronously). Because the then() call returns the result of MathJax.typesetPromise(), which is itself a
promise, the then() will not resolve until that promise is resolved; i.e., not until the typesetting is complete. Finally,
since the typeset() function returns the promise, you can use await in an async function to wait for the
typesetting to complete:

await typeset(...);

Note that this doesn’t take the initial typesetting that MathJax performs into account, so you might want to use
MathJax.startup.promise in place of promise above. I.e., simply use

function typeset(code) {
MathJax.startup.promise = MathJax.startup.promise
.then(() => {code(); return MathJax.typesetPromise()})
.catch((err) => console.log('Typeset failed: ' + err.message));
return MathJax.startup.promise;
}

This avoids the need for the global promise variable, and makes sure that your typesetting doesn’t occur until the
initial typesetting is complete.

9.1.2 Resetting Automatic Equation Numbering

The TeX input jax allows you to automatically number equations. When modifying a page, this can lead to problems
as numbered equations may be removed and added; most commonly, duplicate labels lead to issues.

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You can reset equation numbering using the command

MathJax.texReset([start])
where start is the number at which to start equation numbering.
If you have inserted new content, that may require the entire page to be reprocessed in order to get the automatic
numbering, labels, and references to be correct. In that case, you can do

MathJax.startup.document.state(0);
MathJax.texReset();
MathJax.typeset();

to force MathJax to reset the page to the state it was before MathJax processed it, reset the TeX automatic line
numbering and labels, and then re-typeset the contents of the page from scratch.

9.1.3 Loading MathJax Only on Pages with Math

The MathJax combined configuration files are large, and so you may wish to include MathJax in your page only if it is
necessary. If you are using a content-management system that puts headers and footers into your pages automatically,
you may not want to include MathJax directly, unless most of your pages include math, as that would load MathJax
on all your pages. Once MathJax has been loaded, it should be in the browser’s cache and load quickly on subsequent
pages, but the first page a reader looks at will load more slowly. In order to avoid that, you can use a script like the
following one that checks to see if the content of the page seems to include math, and only loads MathJax if it does.
Note that this is not a very sophisticated test, and it may think there is math in some cases when there really isn’t but
it should reduce the number of pages on which MathJax will have to be loaded.
Create a file called check-for-tex.js containing the following:

(function () {
var body = document.body.textContent;
if (body.match(/(?:\$|\\\(|\\\[|\\begin\{.*?})/)) {
if (!window.MathJax) {
window.MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: {'[+]': [['$', '$']]}
}
};
}
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.src = 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-chtml.js';
document.head.appendChild(script);
}
})();

and then use

<script src="check-for-tex.js" defer></script>

in order to load the script when the page content is ready. Note that you will want to include the path to the location
where you stored check-mathjax.js, that you should change tex-chtml.js to whatever component file you
want to use, and that the window.MathJax value should be set to whatever configuration you want to use. In this
case, it just adds dollar signs to the in-line math delimiters. Finally, adjust the body.match() regular expression to
match whatever you are using for math delimiters.
This simply checks if there is something that looks like a TeX in-line or displayed math delimiter, and loads MathJax
if there is. If you are using different delimiters, you will need to change the pattern to include those (and exclude any

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that you don’t use). If you are using AsciiMath instead of TeX, then change the pattern to look for the AsciiMath
delimiters.
If you are using MathML, you may want to use

if (document.body.querySelector('math')) {...}

for the test instead (provided you aren’t using namespace prefixes, like <m:math>).

9.2 Converting a Math String to Other Formats

An important use case for MathJax is to convert a string containing mathematics (in one of the three forms that MathJax
understands) and convert it into another form (either MathML, or one of the output formats that MathJax supports).
This was difficult to do in MathJax version 2, but easy to do in version 3.
When MathJax starts up, it creates methods for converting from the input format(s) to the output format(s) that you
have loaded, and to MathML format. For example, if you have loaded the MathML input jax and the SVG output jax
(say by using the mml-svg component), then MathJax will create the following conversion methods for you:
MathJax.mathml2svg(math[,options])
MathJax.mathml2svgPromise(math[,options])
MathJax.mathml2mml(math[,options])
MathJax.mathml2mmlPromise(math[,options])
If you had loaded the TeX input jax as well, you would also get four more methods, with tex in place of mathml.
As the names imply, the Promise functions perform the conversion asynchronously, and return promises, while the
others operate synchronously and return the converted form immediately. The first two functions (and any others like
them) produce DOM elements as the results of the conversion, with the promise versions passing that to their then()
functions as their argument (see the section on Asynchronous Conversion below), and the non-promise versions return-
ing them directly. You can insert these DOM elements into the document directly, or you can use their outerHTML
property to obtain their serialized string form.
The functions that convert to MathML produce serialized MathML strings automatically, rather than DOM elements.
(You can use the browser’s DOMParser object to convert the string into a MathML DOM tree if you need one.)

9.2.1 Conversion Options

All four of these functions require an argument that is the math string to be converted (e.g., the serialized MathML
string, or in the case of tex2chtml(), the TeX or LaTeX string). You can also pass a second argument that is an
object containing options that control the conversion process. The options that can be included are:
• display, a boolean specifying whether the math is in display-mode or not (for TeX input). Default is true.
• em, a number giving the number of pixels in an em for the surrounding font. Default is 16.
• ex, a number giving the number of pixels in an ex for the surrounding font. Default is 8.
• containerWidth, a number giving the width of the container, in pixels. Default is 80 times the ex value.
• lineWidth', a number giving the line-breaking width in em units. Default is a very large number (100000),
so effectively no line breaking.
• scale, a number giving a scaling factor to apply to the resulting conversion. Default is 1.
For example,

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let html = MathJax.tex2chtml('\\sqrt{x^2+1}', {em: 12, ex: 6, display: false});

would convert the TeX expression \sqrt{x^2+1} to HTML as an in-line expression, with em size being 12 pixels
and ex size being 6 pixels. The result will be a DOM element containing the HTML for the expression. Similarly,
let html = MathJax.tex2chtml('\\sqrt{x^2+1}', {em: 12, ex: 6, display: false});
let text = html.outerHTML;

sets text to be the serialized HTML string for the expression.

9.2.2 Obtaining the Output Metrics

Since the em, ex, and containerWidth all depend on the location where the math will be placed in the document
(they are values based on the surrounding text font and the container elements width), MathJax provides a method for
obtaining these values from a given DOM element. The method
MathJax.getMetricsFor(node, display)
takes a DOM element (node) and a boolean (display), indicating if the math is in display mode or not, and returns
an object containing all six of the options listed above. You can pass this object directly to the conversion methods
discussed above. So you can do something like
let node = document.querySelector('#math');
let options = MathJax.getMetricsFor(node, true);
let html = MathJax.tex2svg('\\sqrt{x^2+1}', options);
node.appendChild(html);

in order to get get the correct metrics for the (eventual) location of the math that is being converted. Of course, it
would be easier to simply insert the TeX code into the page and use MathJax.typeset() to typeset it, but this is
just an example to show you how to obtain the metrics from a particular location in the page.
Note that obtaining the metrics causes a page refresh, so it is expensive to do this. If you need to get the metrics from
many different locations, there are more efficient ways, but these are advanced topics to be dealt with elsewhere.

9.2.3 Obtaining the Output Stylesheet

The output from the SVG and CommonHTML output jax both depend on CSS stylesheets in order to properly format
their results. You can obtain the SVG stylesheet element by calling
MathJax.svgStylesheet();

and the HTML stylesheet from

MathJax.chtmlStylesheet();

The CommonHTML output jax CSS can be quite large, so the output jax tries to minimize the stylesheet by including
only the styles that are actually needed for the mathematics that has been processed by the output jax. That means you
should request the stylesheet only after you have typeset the mathematics itself.
Moreover, if you typeset several expressions, the stylesheet will include everything needed for all the expressions you
have typeset. If you want to reset the stylesheet, then use
MathJax.startup.output.clearCache();

if the output jax is the CommonHTML output jax. So if you want to produce the style sheet for a single expression,
issue the clearCache() command just before the tex2chtml() call.

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9.2.4 Asynchronous Conversion

If you are converting TeX or LaTeX that might use require to load extensions, or where extensions might be autoloaded,
you will either need to use one of the “full” components that include all the extensions, or preload all the extensions
you need if you plan to use the synchronous calls listed above. Otherwise, you can use the promise-based calls, which
handle the loading of extensions transparently.
For example,

let node = document.querySelector('#math');

let options = MathJax.getMetricsFor(node, true);
MathJax.tex2chtmlPromise('\\require{bbox}\\bbox[red]{\\sqrt{x^2+1}}', options)
.then((html) => {
node.appendChild(html);
let sheet = document.querySelector('#MJX-CHTML-styles');
if (sheet) sheet.parentNode.removeChild(sheet);
document.head.appendChild(MathJax.chtmlStylesheet());
});

would get the metrics for the element with id="math", convert the TeX expression using those metrics (properly
handling the asynchronous load needed for the \require command); then when the expression is typeset, it is added
to the document and the CHTML stylesheet is updated.

48 Chapter 9. Typesetting and Converting Mathematics

 CHAPTER 10

Hosting Your Own Copy of MathJax

We recommend using a CDN service if you can, but you can also install MathJax on your own server, or locally on
your own hard disk. You may need to do this if you are creating a custom build of MathJax, for example, or if you
wish to use MathJax off-line.

10.1 Acquiring the MathJax Code

In order to host your own version of MathJax, you must first obtain a copy of the MathJax code. That can be done
in several ways, the easiest being to use npm (the node package manager), or git to get MathJax from its GitHub
development repository.

10.1.1 Getting MathJax via npm

To include MathJax in your project, use the command

npm install mathjax@3

This will install MathJax in node_modules/mathjax subdirectory of your current directory. It will include
the pre-built components in the node_modules/mathjax/es5 directory. (Note that it is important to use
mathjax@3, as we are still making v2 releases, and so the latest mathjax npm package may not be the v3 one.
The latest version on npmjs.com appears to be chronological rather than by version number.)
If you need access to the source code, as well. Then use

npm install mathjax-full@3

which installs MathJax in the node_modules/mathjax-full subdirectory, the source files for the com-
ponents in node_modules/mathjax-full/components/src, the typescript source files for MathJax
in node_modules/mathjax-full/ts, and the compiled javascript files from the typescript source in
node_modules/mathjax-full/js.

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10.1.2 Getting MathJax via git

To obtain a copy of MathJax from the GitHub component repository, use the command

git clone https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax.git mathjax

This will install a copy of MathJax in the mathjax/es5 directory.

If you need access to the source code as well, then use

git clone https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax-src.git mathjax

which will install the source code for MathJax in the mathjax sub-directory of your current directory. You will need
to compile the typescript source files and build the component files by hand, as they are not part of the repository itself.
To do this, do the following:

cd mathjax
npm install
npm run compile
npm run make-components
cd ..

This will compile the typescript source files from the mathjax/ts directory into javascript files in the mathjax/
js directory, and then will build the component files from mathjax/components/src into the mathjax/es5
directory.

10.2 Make the Files Available

Once you have acquired the MathJax files by one of the methods described above, you need to make the proper files
available on your web server. Note that most of the files in the MathJax distribution are not needed on the server. For
example, the mathjax/ts directory is typescript source code for MathJax, and this is compiled into the javascript
files found in the mathjax/js directory. But even these are not the files you want on your server. These javascript
files are further processed into the MathJax components stored in the mathjax/es5 files using the data in the
mathjax/components/src directory.
It is the contents of the mathjax/es5 directory that you want to make available on your server, as these are the files
that are served from the CDNs that provide MathJax. You should move them to a convenient location on your server.
This might be a top-level directory called mathjax, for example.

10.3 Linking to you Your Copy of MathJax

You can include MathJax in your web page by putting

<script src="path-to-MathJax/tex-chtml.js" id="MathJax-script" async></script>

in your document’s <head> block. Here, tex-chtml.js is the combined component that you are loading, and
this is just an example; you will need to pick the one you want to use. See the section on Configuring and Loading
MathJax for more details.
The path-to-MathJax should be replaced by the URL for the main MathJax directory, so if you have put the
mathjax/es5 directory at the top level of you server’s web site and named it mathjax, you could use

<script src="/mathjax/tex-chtml.js" id="MathJax-script" async></script>

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to load MathJax in your page. For example, your page could look like

<html>
<head>
...
<script src="/mathjax/tex-chtml.js" id="MathJax-script" async></script>
</head>
<body>
...
</body>
</html>

10.4 Fonts on Shared Servers

Typically, you want to have MathJax installed on the same server as your web pages that use MathJax. There are
times, however, when that may be impractical, or when you want to use a MathJax installation at a different site. For
example, a departmental server at www.math.yourcollege.edu might like to use a college-wide installation at
www.yourcollege.edu rather than installing a separate copy on the departmental machine. MathJax can certainly
be loaded from another server, but there is one important caveat — The same-origin security policy for cross-domain
scripting.
Some browsers’ (e.g., Firefox’s) interpretation of the same-origin policy is more strict than most other browsers, and
it affects how fonts are loaded with the @font-face CSS directive. MathJax’s CommonHTML output modes use
this directive to load web-based math fonts into a page when the user doesn’t have them installed locally on their own
computer. These browsers’ security policies, however, only allow this when the fonts come from the same server as
the web page itself, so if you load MathJax (and hence its web fonts) from a different server, they won’t be able to
access those web fonts. In this case, MathJax’s CommonHTML output mode will not show the correct fonts.
There is a solution to this, however, if you manage the server where MathJax is installed, and if that server is running
the Apache web software. In the remote server’s MathJax folder, create a file called .htaccess that contains the
following lines:

<FilesMatch "\.(ttf|otf|eot|woff)$">
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
</IfModule>
</FilesMatch>

and make sure the permissions allow the server to read this file. (The file’s name starts with a period, which causes
it to be an “invisible” file on unix-based operating systems. Some systems, particularly those with graphical user
interfaces, may not allow you to create such files, so you might need to use the command-line interface to accomplish
this.)
This file should make it possible for pages at other sites to load MathJax from this server in such a way that Firefox (and
the other browsers with similar same-origin policies that apply to fonts) will be able to download the web-based fonts.
If you want to restrict the sites that can access the web fonts, change the Access-Control-Allow-Origin line
to something like:

Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "http://www.math.yourcollege.edu"

so that only pages at www.math.yourcollege.edu will be able to download the fonts from this site. See the
open font library discussion of web-font linking for more details.

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10.5 Firefox and Local Fonts

Firefox’s same-origin security policy affects its ability to load web-based fonts, as described above. This has implica-
tions not only to cross-domain loading of MathJax, but also to using MathJax locally from your hard disk. Firefox’s
interpretation of the same-origin policy for local files used to be that the “same domain” for a page is the directory
where that page exists, or any of its subdirectories. This allowed MathJax to be loaded from a subdirectory of the
director where the web page was loaded.
This is no longer the case with Firefox starting with version 68 and going forward (see their documentation). Now
there is no same origin for a file:// URL (the origin for a page loaded from a file:// URL is unique).
This means there are limited options for using MathJax in Firefox with a local copy of MathJax. The easiest option is
to use the SVG output renderer rather than the CommonHTML output, as that does not require fonts to be loaded, so
avoids the same-origin issue. Alternatively, you could install the MathJax TeX fonts as system fonts so that Firefox
doesn’t hav to try to load them as web fonts.
This is an unfortunate restriction for MathJax (though we understand their reasoning), but it is a limitation imposed by
Firefox’s security model that MathJax can not circumvent. Currently, this is not a problem for other browsers, though
there is no guarantee that it won’t be in the future.

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 CHAPTER 11

Making a Custom Build of MathJax

MathJax provides a number of combined components that load everything you need to run MathJax with a given input
and output format. Still, you might find that none of the ones we provide fully suit your needs, and that you would like
to include additional components in the build, or perhaps want to include customized configuration options.
You can use the MathJax component build tools to make your own custom component that has exactly the pieces and
configuration that you want. You can also use them to make a custom extension, for example a TeX input extension,
that takes advantage of the components already loaded, but implements additional functionality. These possibilities
are described in Building a Custom Component below.
It is also possible to make a completely custom build of MathJax that doesn’t use the MathJax components at all, but
includes direct calls to the MathJax source files. This is described in A Custom MathJax Build below.
If you wish to include MathJax as part of a larger project, you can use either of the techniques to do that, and make a
webpacked file that includes your own project code as well as MathJax.
Your first step is to download a copy of MathJax via npm or git, as described in the section on Acquiring the MathJax
Code.

11.1 Building a Custom Component

MathJax comes with a number of predefined components, and you can use their definitions as a starting point for your
own custom component. There are also custom component examples (with documentation) in the MathJax web demos
repository, which is similar to the ones described here.
There are two kinds of components you could build:
• A combined component that brings together several other components (the tex-chtml component is a com-
bined component)
• A extension component that contains what is needed for one feature and can be loaded along with other com-
ponents to add that feature to MathJax.

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We describe how you can create each of these below. In both cases, you should create a directory to hold your
component’s support files. You will need the main control file for the component (that includes the code that defines
the component), and a webpack control file that will tell MathJax’s build tools how to handle your component. These
will be discussed in the sections below.
If you have not already done so, you should build the components already defined in MathJax, so that you can call on
them in your own component. To do this, issue the commands

cd mathjax
npm run make-components

(Note that the mathjax directory will be in your node_modules directory if you used npm to install MathJax.)

11.1.1 A Custom Combined Component

After downloading a copy of MathJax as described in the section on Acquiring the MathJax Code, make the directory
for your component and cd to that directory. We will assume the directory is called custom-mathjax for this
discussion.
For this example, we will create a custom build that has the TeX input jax and the SVG output jax, and we will load
the newcommand, ams, and configMacros extensions, but will not include require or autoload, so the user
will not be able load any additional TeX extensions. This component also includes the contextual menu.

The Control File

Create a javascript file to house the component and call it custom-mathjax.js. The file should contain the
following code (we assume here that you used npm to install MathJax. If not, you may need to adjust the locations in
the require() commands).

//
// Initialize the MathJax startup code
//
require('mathjax-full/components/src/startup/lib/startup.js');

//
// Get the loader module and indicate the modules that
// will be loaded by hand below
//
const {Loader} = require('mathjax-full/js/components/loader.js');
Loader.preLoad(
'loader', 'startup',
'core',
'input/tex-base',
'[tex]/ams',
'[tex]/newcommand',
'[tex]/configMacros',
'output/svg', 'output/svg/fonts/tex.js',
'ui/menu'
);

//
// Load the components that we want to combine into one component
// (the ones listed in the preLoad() call above)
//
require('mathjax-full/components/src/core/core.js');
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(continued from previous page)

require('mathjax-full/components/src/input/tex-base/tex-base.js');
require('mathjax-full/components/src/input/tex/extensions/ams/ams.js');
require('mathjax-full/components/src/input/tex/extensions/newcommand/newcommand.js');
require('mathjax-full/components/src/input/tex/extensions/config_macros/configMacros.
˓→js');

require('mathjax-full/components/src/output/svg/svg.js');
require('mathjax-full/components/src/output/svg/fonts/tex/tex.js');

require('mathjax-full/components/src/ui/menu/menu.js');

//
// Update the configuration to include any updated values
//
const {insert} = require('mathjax-full/js/util/Options.js');
insert(MathJax.config, {
tex: {
packages: {'[+]': ['ams', 'newcommand', 'configMacros']}
}
});

//
// Loading this component will cause all the normal startup
// operations to be performed
//
require('mathjax-full/components/src/startup/startup.js');

This loads the various components that we want to include in the combined component, including the standard startup
code so that the usual startup process is included.

The Webpack Configuration

Next, create the file webpack.config.js that includes the following:

const PACKAGE = require('mathjax-full/components/webpack.common.js');

module.exports = PACKAGE(
'custom-mathjax', // the name of the package to build
'../node_modules/mathjax-full/js', // location of the mathjax library
[], // packages to link to
__dirname, // our directory
'.' // where to put the packaged component
);

This file gives the name that will be used for this component (custom-mathjax in this case), a pointer to where the
MathJax javascript code is to be found (adjust this to suit your setup), an array of components that we assume are al-
ready loaded when this one is loaded (none in this case), the directory name we are working in (always __dirname),
and the directory where we want the final packaged component to go (the default is the mathjax-full/es5 direc-
tory, but we set it to the directory containing the source files, and the component will end with .min.js).
Most of the real work is done by the mathjax-full/components/webpack.common.js file, which is in-
cluded in the first line here.

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Building the Component

Once these two files are ready, you are ready to build the component. First, make sure that the needed tools are
available via the commands

npm install webpack

npm install webpack-cli
npm install uglifyjs-webpack-plugin
npm install babel-loader@7
npm install babel-core
npm install babel-preset-env

After these are in place (you should only need to do this once), you should be able to use the command

../node_modules/mathjax-full/components/bin/makeAll

to process your custom build. You should end up with a file custom-mathjax.min.js in the directory with the
other files. If you put this on your web server, you can load it into your web pages in place of loading MathJax from a
CDN. This fill will include all that you need to run MathJax on your pages. Just add

<script src="custom-mathjax.min.js" id="MathJax-script" async></script>

to your page and you should be in business (adjust the URL to point to wherever you have placed the
custom-mathjax.min.js file).

Configuring the Component

Note that you can still include a MathJax = {...} definition in your web page before loading this custom MathJax
build if you want to customize the configuration for a specific page. You could also include configuration within
the component itself, as we did for the TeX packages array. This will override any page-provided configuration,
however, so if you want to provide non-standard defaults that can still be overridden in the page, use

//
// Update the configuration to include any updated values
//
const {insert} = require('mathjax-full/js/util/Options.js');
insert(MathJax.config, {tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['ams', 'newcommand', 'configMacros']}
˓→}});

MathJax.config = insert({
// your default options here
}, MathJax.config);

which will update the TeX packages, and then merge the user’s configuration options into your defaults and set
MathJax.config to the combined options.

Fonts for CommonHTML

If you include the CommonHTML output jax in your custom build, the actual web fonts are not included in the
webpacked file, so you will probably need to include fontURL in the chtml block of your configuration and have it
provide a URL where the fonts can be found. They are in the mathjax-full/es5/output/chtml/fonts/
woff-v2 directory, and you can put them on your server, or simply point fontURL to one of the CDN directories for
the fonts.

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11.1.2 A Custom Extension

Making a custom extension is very similar to making a custom combined component. The main difference is that
the extension may rely on other components, so you need to tell the build system about that so that it doesn’t include
the code from those other components. You also don’t load the extension file directly (like you do the combined
component above), but instead include it in the load array of the loader configuration block, and MathJax loads it
itself, as discussed below.
For this example, we make a custom TeX extension that defines new TeX commands implemented by javascript
functions.
The commands implemented by here provide the ability to generate MathML token elements from within TeX by
hand. This allows more control over the content and attributes of the elements produced. The macros are \mi, \mo,
\mn, \ms, and \mtext, and they each take an argument that is the text to be used as the content of the corresponding
MathML element. The text is not further processed by TeX, but the extension does convert sequences of the form
\uNNNN (where the N are hexadecimal digits) into the corresponding unicode character; e.g., \mi{\u2460} would
produce U+2460, a circled digit 1, as the content of an mi element.

The Extension File

After downloading a copy of MathJax as described in the section on Acquiring the MathJax Code, create a directory
for the extension named custom-extension and cd to it. Then create the file mml.js containing the following
text:

import {Configuration} from '../node_modules/mathjax-full/js/input/tex/Configuration.

˓→js';

import {CommandMap} from '../node_modules/mathjax-full/js/input/tex/SymbolMap.js';

import TexError from '../node_modules/mathjax-full/js/input/tex/TexError.js';

/**
* This function prevents multi-letter mi elements from being
* interpreted as TEXCLASS.OP
*/
function classORD(node) {
this.getPrevClass(node);
return this;
}

/**
* Convert \uXXXX to corresponding unicode characters within a string
*/
function convertEscapes(text) {
return text.replace(/\\u([0-9A-F]{4})/gi, (match, hex) => String.
˓→fromCharCode(parseInt(hex,16)));

/**
* Allowed attributes on any token element other than the ones with default values
*/
const ALLOWED = {
style: true,
href: true,
id: true,
class: true
};

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(continued from previous page)

/**
* Parse a string as a set of attribute="value" pairs.
*/
function parseAttributes(text, type) {
const attr = {};
if (text) {
let match;
while ((match = text.match(/^\s*((?:data-)?[a-z][-a-z]*)\s*=\s*(?:"([^"]*)"|(.*?
˓→))(?:\s+|,\s*|$)/i))) {

const name = match[1], value = match[2] || match[3]

if (type.defaults.hasOwnProperty(name) || ALLOWED.hasOwnProperty(name) ||
˓→name.substr(0,5) === 'data-') {

attr[name] = convertEscapes(value);
} else {
throw new TexError('BadAttribute', 'Unknown attribute "%1"', name);
}
text = text.substr(match[0].length);
}
if (text.length) {
throw new TexError('BadAttributeList', 'Can\'t parse as attributes: %1',
˓→text);

}
}
return attr;
}

/**
* The methods needed for the MathML token commands
*/
const MmlMethods = {

/**
* @param {TeXParser} parser The TeX parser object
* @param {string} name The control sequence that is calling this function
* @param {string} type The MathML element type to be created
* /
mmlToken(parser, name, type) {
const typeClass = parser.configuration.nodeFactory.mmlFactory.
˓→getNodeClass(type);

const def = parseAttributes(parser.GetBrackets(name), typeClass);

const text = convertEscapes(parser.GetArgument(name));
const mml = parser.create('node', type, [parser.create('text', text)], def);
if (type === 'mi') mml.setTeXclass = classORD;
parser.Push(mml);
}

};

/**
* The macro mapping of control sequence to function calls
*/
const MmlMap = new CommandMap('mmlMap', {
mi: ['mmlToken', 'mi'],
mo: ['mmlToken', 'mo'],
mn: ['mmlToken', 'mn'],
ms: ['mmlToken', 'ms'],
mtext: ['mmlToken', 'mtext']
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}, MmlMethods);

/**
* The configuration used to enable the MathML macros
*/
const MmlConfiguration = Configuration.create(
'mml', {handler: {macro: ['mmlMap']}}
);

The comments explain what this code is doing. The main piece needed to make it a TeX extension is the
Configuration created in the last few lines. It creates a TeX package named mml that handles macros through a
CommandMap named mmlMap that is defined just above it. That command map defines five macros described at at
the beginning of this section, each of which is tied to a method named mmlToken in the MmlMethods object that is
defined earlier, passing it the name of the MathML token element to create. The mmlToken method is the one that
is called by the TeX parser when the \mi and other macros are called. It gets the argument to the macro, and any
optional attributes, and creates the MathML element with the attributes, using the argument as the text of the element.

The Webpack Configuration

Next, create the file webpack.config.js that includes the following:

const PACKAGE = require('mathjax-full/components/webpack.common.js');

module.exports = PACKAGE(
'mml', // the name of the package to build
'../node_modules/mathjax-full/js', // location of the mathjax library
[ // packages to link to
'components/src/core/lib',
'components/src/input/tex-base/lib'
],
__dirname, // our directory
'.' // where to put the packaged component
);

This file gives the name that will be used for this component (mml in this case), a pointer to where the MathJax
javascript code is to be found (adjust this to suit your setup), an array of components that we assume are already
loaded when this one is loaded (the core and tex-base components in this case), the directory name we are
working in (always __dirname), and the directory where we want the final packaged component to go (the default
is the mathjax-full/es5 directory, but we set it to the directory containing the source files, and the component
will end with .min.js).
Most of the real work is done by the mathjax-full/components/webpack.common.js file, which is in-
cluded in the first line here.

Building the Extension

Once these two files are ready, you are ready to build the component. First, make sure that the needed tools are
available via the commands

npm install webpack

npm install webpack-cli
npm install uglifyjs-webpack-plugin
npm install babel-loader@7
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npm install babel-core
npm install babel-preset-env

After these are in place (you should only need to do this once), you should be able to use the command

../node_modules/mathjax-full/components/bin/makeAll

to process your custom build. You should end up with a file mml.min.js in the directory with the other files. If you
put this on your web server, you can load it as a component by putting it in the load array of the loader block of
your configuration, as descrinbed below.

Loading the Extension

To load your custom extension, you will need to tell MathJax where it is located, and include it in the file to be loaded
on startup. MathJax allows you to define paths to locations where your extensions are stored, and then you can refer
to the extensions in that location by using a prefix that represents that location. MathJax has a pre-defined prefix,
mathjax that is the default prefix when none is specified explicitly, and it refers to the location where the main
MathJax file was loaded (e.g., the file tex-svg.js, or startup.js).
You can define your own prefix to point to the location of your extensions by using the paths object in the loader
block of your configuration. In our case (see code below), we add a custom prefix, and have it point to the URL of
our extension (in this case, the same directory as the HTML file that loads it, represented by the URL .). We use the
custom prefix to specify [custom]/mml.min.js in the load array so that our extension will be loaded.
Finally, we ad the mml extension to the packages array in the tex block of our configuration via the special
notation {‘[+]’: [. . . ]} that tells MathJax to append the given array to the existing packages array that is already in
the configuration by default. So this uses all the packages that were already specified, plus our new mml package that
is defined in our extension.
The configuration and loading of MathJax now looks something like this:

<script>
MathJax = {
loader: {
load: ['[custom]/mml.min.js'],
paths: {custom: '.'}
},
tex: {
packages: {'[+]': ['mml']}
}
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-chtml.js">
</script>

You should change the custom: '.' line to point to the actual URL for your server.
This example loads the tex-chtml.js combined component, so the TeX input is already loaded when our extension
is loaded. If you are using startup.js instead, and including input/tex in the load array, you will need to tell
MathJax that your extension depends on the input/tex extension so that it waits to load your extension until after
the TeX input jax is loaded. To do that, add a dependencies block to your configuration like the following:

<script>
MathJax = {
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

loader: {
load: ['input/tex', 'output/chtml', '[custom]/mml.min.js'],
paths: {custom: '.'},
dependencies: {'[custom]/mml.min.js': ['input/tex']}
},
tex: {
packages: {'[+]': ['mml']}
}
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/startup.js">
</script>

This example can be seen live in the MathJax 3 demos repository.

11.2 A Custom MathJax Build

It is possible to make a completely custom build of MathJax that is not based on other MathJax components at all.
The following example shows how to make a custom build that provides a function for obtaining the speech string for
a given TeX math string. This example is similar to one in the MathJax3 demos repository.
After downloading a copy of MathJax as described in the section on Acquiring the MathJax Code, create a directory
called mathjax-speech and cd into it.

11.2.1 The Custom Build File

Create the custom MathJax file named mathjax-speech.js containing the following:

//
// Load the desired components
//
const mathjax = require('mathjax-full/js/mathjax.js').mathjax; // MathJax
˓→core

const TeX = require('mathjax-full/js/input/tex.js').TeX; // TeX input

const MathML = require('mathjax-full/js/input/mathml.js').MathML; // MathML
˓→input

const browser = require('mathjax-full/js/adaptors/browserAdaptor.js').

˓→browserAdaptor; // browser DOM

const Enrich = require('mathjax-full/js/a11y/semantic-enrich.js').EnrichHandler;

˓→ // semantic enrichment
const Register = require('mathjax-full/js/handlers/html.js').RegisterHTMLHandler;
˓→ // the HTML handler
const AllPackages = require('mathjax-full/js/input/tex/AllPackages').AllPackages;
˓→ // all TeX packages
const STATE = require('mathjax-full/js/core/MathItem.js').STATE;

const sreReady = require('mathjax-full/js/a11y/sre.js').sreReady; // SRE

˓→promise;

//
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

// Register the HTML handler with the browser adaptor and add the semantic enrichment
//
Enrich(Register(browser()), new MathML());

//
// Create the TeX input jax
//
const inputJax = new TeX({
packages: AllPackages,
macros: {require: ['', 1]} // Make \require a no-op since all packages are
˓→loaded

});

//
// Initialize mathjax with a blank DOM.
//
const html = MathJax.document('', {
enrichSpeech: 'shallow', // add speech to the enriched MathML
InputJax: tex
});

//
// The user's configuration object
//
const CONFIG = window.MathJax || {};

//
// The global MathJax object
//
window.MathJax = {
version: mathjax.version,
html: html,
tex: inputJax,
sreReady: sreReady,

tex2speech(tex, display = true) {

const math = new html.options.MathItem(tex, inputJax, display);
math.convert(html, STATE.CONVERT);
return math.root.attributes.get('data-semantic-speech') || 'no speech text
˓→generated';

}
}

//
// Perform ready function, if there is one
//
if (CONFIG.ready) {
sreReady.then(CONFIG.ready);
}

Unlike the component-based example above, this custom build calls on the MathJax source files directly. The import
commands at the beginning of the file load the needed objects, and the rest of the code instructs MathJax to create a
MathDocument object for handling the conversions that we will be doing (using a TeX input jax), and then defines
a global MathJax object that has the tex2speech() function that our custom build offers.

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11.2.2 The Webpack Configuration

Next, create the file webpack.config.js that includes the following:

const PACKAGE = require('mathjax-full/components/webpack.common.js');

module.exports = PACKAGE(
'mathjax-speech', // the name of the package to build
'../node_modules/mathjax-full/js', // location of the mathjax library
[], // packages to link to
__dirname, // our directory
'.' // where to put the packaged component
);

This file gives the name that will be used for this component (mathjax-speech in this case), a pointer to where
the MathJax javascript code is to be found (adjust this to suit your setup), an array of components that we assume are
already loaded when this one is loaded (none, since this is a self-contained build), the directory name we are working
in (always __dirname), and the directory where we want the final packaged component to go (the default is the
mathjax-full/es5 directory, but we set it to the directory containing the source files, and the component will end
with .min.js).
Most of the real work is done by the mathjax-full/components/webpack.common.js file, which is in-
cluded in the first line here.

11.2.3 Building the Custom File

Once these two files are ready, you should be able to use the command

../node_modules/mathjax-full/components/bin/makeAll

to process your custom build. You should end up with a file mathjax-speech.min.js in the directory with the
other files. it will contain just the parts of MathJax that are needed to implement the MathJax.tex2speech()
command defined in the file above. Note that this is not enough to do normal typesetting (for example, no output jax
has been included), so this is a minimal file for producing the speech strings from TeX input.

11.2.4 Using the File in a Web Page

If you put the mathjax-speech.min.js file on your web server, you can load it into your web pages in place
of loading MathJax from a CDN. This fill will include all that you need to use the MathJax.tex2speech()
command in your pages. Just add

<script src="mathjax-speech.min.js" id="MathJax-script" async></script>

to your page (adjust the URL to point to wherever you have placed the custom-mathjax.min.js file). Then you
can use javascript calls like

const speech = MathJax.tex2speech('\\sqrt{x^2+1}', true);

to obtain a text string that contains the speech text for the square root given in the TeX string.
Note, however, that the Speech-Rule Engine (SRE) that underlies the speech generation loads asynchronously, so you
have to be sure that SRE is ready before you make such a call. The mathjax-speech.js file provides two ways
of handling the synchronization with SRE. The first is to use the global MathJax variable to include a ready()
function that is called when SRE is ready. For example,

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window.speechReady = false;
window.MathJax = {
ready: () => {
window.speechReady = true;
}
};

would set the global variable speechReady to true when SRE is ready to run (so you can check that value to see if
speech can be generated yet). A more sophisticated ready() function could allow you to queue translations to be
performed, and when SRE is ready, it performs them. Alternatively, if you have a user interface that allows users to
transform TeX expressions, for example, then you could initially disable to buttons that trigger speech generation, and
use the ready() function to enable them. That way, the user can’t ask for speech translation until it can be produced.
The second method of synchronizing with SRE is through the fact that the code sets MathJax.sreReady to a
promise that is resolves when SRE is ready, which you can use to make sure SRE is ready when you want to do speech
generation. For example

function showSpeech(tex, display = false) {

MathJax.sreReady = MathJax.sreReady.then(() => {
const speech = MathJax.tex2speech(tex, display);
const output = document.getElementById('speech');
output.innerHTML = '';
output.appendChild(document.createTextNode(speech));
});
}

provides a function that lets you specify a TeX string to translate, and then (asynchronously) generates the speech for
it and displays it as the contents of the DOM element with id="speech" in the page.

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 CHAPTER 12

Examples in a Browser

There are a number of example files in the MathJax web demo repository (see the list of demos). These include
documentation as well as live examples that you can run.
In addition, there are examples for:
• Configuring MathJax using an external script
• Configuring and loading MathJax using one local file
• Synchronizing with MathJax using promises
• Reseting TeX equation numbering
• Loading MathJax only on pages with math
• A replacement for the NativeMML output jax
• Backward Compatibility for TeX input
• Locating MathJax v2 math script tags

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 CHAPTER 13

Getting Started with Node

This page is still under construction.

See the MathJax node demos for examples of how to use MathJax from a node application. These are categorized into
three groups
• Examples using MathJax components via the startup module
• Examples using MathJax components loaded by hand
• Examples using MathJax modules directly.
More information will be coming to this section in the future.

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 CHAPTER 14

Three Ways to Use MathJax in Node

14.1 Using MathJax Components in Node

This page is still under construction.

It is possible to use MathJax in a node application in essentially the same was that it is used in a browser. in particular,
you can load MathJax components and configure MathJax using a global MathJax object and loading the startup
component or a combined component file via node’s require() command.
See the MathJax node demos for examples of how to use MathJax from a node application. in particular, see the
component-based examples for illustrations of how to use MathJax components in a node application.
More information will be coming to this section in the future.

14.2 Loading Components by Hand in NodeJS

This page is still under construction.

In a node application, you can load components individually yourself via node’s require() command, rather than
relying on MathJax loader, which operates asynchronously. This gives you the ability to work with MathJax syn-
chronously (i.e., without the need to use promises). It also gives you more complete control over the loading of
components, though in this case you do need to take care to load dependencies yourself, and to make sure the compo-
nents are loaded in the right order.
This approach lets you take advantage of using the convenient packaging of MathJax into individual components, the
configuration of MathJax through the global MathJax variable, and its automatic creation of objects and methods by
the startup component, while still allowing you to work completely synchronously with the MathJax code. (Or you
can still use promises as well — it’s up to you!)
See the MathJax node demos for examples of how to use MathJax from a node application. in particular, see the
preloading examples for illustrations of how to load MathJax components by hand in a node application.
More information will be coming to this section in the future.

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14.3 Linking to MathJax Directly in Node

This page is still under construction.

Node applications can link directly to MathJax source code, rather than using MathJax components. This provides the
lowest-level access to the MathJax code, and is more complicated than using components, but it gives you the greatest
flexibility as well.
See the MathJax node demos for examples of how to use MathJax from a node application. in particular, see the
non-component-based examples for illustrations of how to use MathJax modules directly in a node application, rather
than using the pre-packaged components.
More information will be coming to this section in the future.

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 CHAPTER 15

Examples of MathJax in Node

This page is still under construction.

See the MathJax node demos for examples of how to use MathJax from a node application. These are categorized into
three groups
• Examples using MathJax components via the startup module
• Examples using MathJax components loaded by hand
• Examples using MathJax modules directly.
More information will be coming to this section in the future.

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 CHAPTER 16

TeX and LaTeX Support

The support for TeX and LaTeX in MathJax involves two functions: the first looks for mathematics within your web
page (indicated by math delimiters like $$...$$) and marks the mathematics for later processing by MathJax, and
the second is what converts the TeX notation into MathJax’s internal format, where one of MathJax’s output processors
then displays it in the web page. In MathJax version 2, these were separated into distinct components (the tex2jax
preprocessor and the TeX input jax), but in version 3, the tex2jax functions have been folded into the TeX input jax.
The TeX input jax can be configured to look for whatever markers you want to use for your math delimiters. See the
TeX configuration options section for details on how to customize the delimiters, and other options for TeX input.
The TeX input processor handles conversion of your mathematical notation into MathJax’s internal format (which is
essentially MathML), and so acts as a TeX to MathML converter. The TeX input processor can also be customized
through the use of extensions that define additional functionality (see the TeX and LaTeX extensions section).
Note: if you are not familiar with TeX/LaTeX, a good starting point is the LaTeX Wiki book.

16.1 Differences from Actual TeX

Since MathJax renders for the web and TeX is a print layout engine, there are natural limitations to which parts of TeX
can be supported in a reasonable way. Accordingly, there are several differences between “real” TeX/LaTeX systems
and MathJax’s TeX Input.
First and foremost, the TeX input processor implements only the math-mode macros of TeX and LaTeX, not
the text-mode macros. MathJax expects that you will use standard HTML tags to handle formatting the text
of your page; MathJax only handles the mathematics. So, for example, MathJax does not implement \emph
or \begin{enumerate}...\end{enumerate} or other text-mode macros or environments. You must use
HTML to handle such formatting tasks. If you need a LaTeX-to-HTML converter, you should consider other options.
There are two exception to this rule. First, MathJax supports the \ref macro outside of math-mode. Second, MathJax
supports some macros that add text within math-mode (such as \text{}) as well as $...$ and \(...\) within
such macros (to switch back into math-mode) and \$ to escape.

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Second, some features in MathJax might be necessarily limited. For example, MathJax only implements a limited
subset of the array environment’s preamble; i.e., only the l, r, c, and | characters alongside : for dashed lines —
everything else is ignored.

16.2 TeX and LaTeX math delimiters

By default, the TeX processor uses the LaTeX math delimiters, which are \(...\) for in-line math, and \[...\]
for displayed equations. It also recognizes the TeX delimiters $$...$$ for displayed equations, but it does not define
$...$ as in-line math delimiters. That is because dollar signs appear too often in non-mathematical settings, which
could cause some text to be treated as mathematics unexpectedly. For example, with single-dollar delimiters, “. . . the
cost is $2.50 for the first one, and $2.00 for each additional one . . . ” would cause the phrase “2.50 for the first one,
and” to be treated as mathematics since it falls between dollar signs. For this reason, if you want to use single dollar
signs for in-line math mode, you must enable that explicitly in your configuration:

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
}
};

You can use \$ to prevent a dollar sign from being treated as a math delimiter within the text of your web page, e.g.,
use “. . . the cost is $2.50 for the first one, and $2.00 for each additional one . . . ” to prevent these dollar signs from
being used as math delimiters in a web page where dollar signs have been configured to be in-line delimiters.
Note that, as opposed to true LaTeX, MathJax processes all environments when wrapped inside math delimiters, even
those like \begin{equation}...\end{equation} that are supposed to be used to initiate math mode. By de-
fault, MathJax will also render all environments outside of delimiters, e.g., \begin{matrix}...\end{matrix}
would be processed even if it is not in math mode delimiters, though you are encouraged to use proper delimiters
for these cases to make your files more compatible with actual LaTeX. This functionality can be controlled via the
processEnvironments option in the tex configuration options.
See the tex configuration options page, for additional configuration parameters that you can specify for the TeX input
processor.

16.3 TeX and LaTeX in HTML documents

16.3.1 HTML Special Characters

Keep in mind that your mathematics is part of an HTML document, so you need to be aware of the special characters
used by HTML as part of its markup. There cannot be HTML tags within the math delimiters (other than <br>,
<wbr>, and HTML comments) as TeX-formatted math does not include HTML tags. Also, since the mathematics is
initially given as text in the page, you need to be careful that your mathematics doesn’t look like HTML tags to the
browser, which parses the page before MathJax gets to see it. In particular, that means that you have to be careful
about things like less-than and greater-than signs (< and >), and ampersands (&), which have special meaning to web
browsers. For example,

... when $x<y$ we have ...

will cause a problem, because the browser will think <y is the beginning of a tag named y (even though there is no
such tag in HTML). When this happens, the browser will think the tag continues up to the next > in the document
(typically the end of the next actual tag in the HTML file), and you may notice that you are missing part of the text
of the document. In the example above, the “<y” and “we have ...” will not be displayed because the browser

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thinks it is part of the tag starting at <y. This is one indication you can use to spot this problem; it is a common error
and should be avoided.
Usually, it is sufficient simply to put spaces around these symbols to cause the browser to avoid them, so

... when $x < y$ we have ...

should work. Alternatively, you can use the HTML entities &lt;, &gt; and &amp; to encode these characters so
that the browser will not interpret them, but MathJax will. E.g.,

... when $x &lt; y$ we have ...

Finally, there are \lt and \gt macros defined to make it easier to enter < and > using TeX-like syntax:

... when $x \lt y$ we have ...

Again, keep in mind that the browser interprets your text before MathJax does.

16.3.2 Interactions with Content-Management Systems

Another source of difficulty is when MathJax is used in content-management systems that have their own document
processing commands that are interpreted before the HTML page is created. For example, many blogs and wikis
use formats like Markdown to allow you to create the content of your pages. In Markdown, the underscore is used
to indicate italics, and this usage will conflict with MathJax’s use of the underscore to indicate a subscript. Since
Markdown is applied to the page first, it may convert your subscript markers into italics (inserting <i> or <em> tags
into your mathematics, which will cause MathJax to ignore the math).
Such systems need to be told not to modify the mathematics that appears between math delimiters. That usually
involves modifying the content-management system itself, which is beyond the means of most page authors. If you
are lucky, someone else will already have done this for you, and you may be able to find a MathJax plugin for your
system using a web search.
If there is no plugin for your system, or if the plugin doesn’t handle the subtleties of isolating the mathematics from
the other markup that it supports, then you may have to “trick” the content-management system into leaving your
mathematics untouched. Most content-management systems provide some means of indicating text that should not be
modified (“verbatim” text), often for giving code snippets for computer languages. You may be able use that to enclose
your mathematics so that the system leaves it unchanged and MathJax can process it. For example, in Markdown, the
back-tick (`) is used to mark verbatim text, so

... we have `\(x_1 = 132\)` and `\(x_2 = 370\)` and so ...

may be able to protect the underscores from being processed by Markdown.

Alternatively, some content-management systems use the backslash (\) as a special character for “escaping” other
characters, and you may be able to use that to prevent it from converting underscores to italics. That is, you might be
able to use

... we have $x\_1 = 132$ and $x\_2 = 370$ and so ...

to avoid the underscores from making 1 = 132$ and $x into italics.

If your system uses backslashes in this way, that can help with italics, but it also causes difficulties in other ways.
Because TeX uses this character to indicate a macro name, you need to be able to pass a backslash along to the page so
that MathJax will be able to identify macro names; but if the content-management system is using them as escapes, it
will remove the backslashes as part of its processing, and they won’t make it into the final web page. In such systems,
you may have to double the backslashes in order to obtain a single backslash in your HTML page. For example, you
may have to do

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\\begin{array}{cc}
a & b \\\\
c & c
\\end{array}

to get an array with the four entries a, b, c, and d in two rows. Note in particular that if you want \\ you will have to
double both backslashes, giving \\\\.
That may also affect how you enter the math delimiters. Since the defaults are \(...\) and \[...\], if your
system uses \ as an escape of its own, you may need to use \\(...\\) and \\[...\\] instead in order to get
\(...\) and \[...\] into the page where MathJax can process it.
Finally, if you have enabled single dollar signs as math delimiters and you want to include a literal dollar sign in your
web page (one that doesn’t represent a math delimiter), you will need to prevent MathJax from using it as a math
delimiter. If you also enable the processEscapes configuration parameter (it is enabled by default), then you can
use \$ in the text of your page to get a dollar sign (without the backslash) in the end. Alternatively, you can use
something like <span>$</span> to isolate the dollar sign so that MathJax will not use it as a delimiter.

16.4 Defining TeX macros

You can use the \def, \newcommand, \renewcommand, \newenvironment, \renewenvironment, and
\let commands to create your own macros and environments. Unlike actual TeX, however, in order for MathJax
to process such definitions, they must be enclosed in math delimiters (since MathJax only processes macros in math-
mode). For example

\(
\def\RR{{\bf R}}
\def\bold#1{{\bf #1}}
\)

would define \RR to produce a bold-faced “R”, and \bold{...} to put its argument into bold face. Both definitions
would be available throughout the rest of the page.
You can include macro definitions in the macros section of the tex blocks of your configuration, but they must be
represented as javascript objects. For example, the two macros above can be pre-defined in the configuration by

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
macros: {
RR: "{\\bf R}",
bold: ["{\\bf #1}", 1]
}
}
};

Here you give the macro as a name: value pair, where the name is the name of the control sequence (without
the backslash) that you are defining, and value is either the replacement string for the macro (when there are no
arguments) or an array consisting of the replacement string followed by the number of arguments for the macro and,
optionally, default values for optional arguments.
Note that the replacement string is given as a javascript string literal, and the backslash has special meaning in
javascript strings. So to get an actual backslash in the string you must double it, as in the examples above.

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16.5 Automatic Equation Numbering

The TeX input processing in MathJax can be configured to add equation numbers to displayed equations automatically.
This functionality is turned off by default, but it is easy to configure MathJax to produce automatic equation numbers
by adding:

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
tags: 'ams'
}
};

to tell the TeX input processor to use the AMS numbering rules (where only certain environments produce numbered
equations, as they would be in LaTeX). It is also possible to set the tagging to ‘all’, so that every displayed equation
will get a number, regardless of the environment used.
You can use \notag or \nonumber to prevent individual equations from being numbered, and \tag{} can be used
to override the usual equation number with your own symbol instead (or to add an equation tag even when automatic
numbering is off).
Note that the AMS environments come in two forms: starred and unstarred. The unstarred versions produce equation
numbers (when tags is set to 'ams') and the starred ones don’t. For example

\begin{equation}
E = mc^2
\end{equation}

will be numbered, while

\begin{equation*}
e^{\pi i} + 1 = 0
\end{equation*}

will not be numbered (when tags is 'ams').

You can use \label to give an equation an identifier that you can use to refer to it later, and then use \ref or
\eqref within your document to insert the actual equation number at that location, as a reference. For example,

In equation \eqref{eq:sample}, we find the value of an

interesting integral:

\begin{equation}
\int_0^\infty \frac{x^3}{e^x-1}\,dx = \frac{\pi^4}{15}
\label{eq:sample}
\end{equation}

includes a labeled equation and a reference to that equation. Note that references can come before the corresponding
formula as well as after them.
You can configure the way that numbers are displayed and how the references to them by including the tagFormat
extension, and setting options within the tagFormat block of your tex configuration. See the tagFormat extension
for more details.
If you are using automatic equation numbering and modifying the page dynamically, you can run into problems due
to duplicate labels. See Resetting Automatic Equation Numbering for how to address this.

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16.6 TeX and LaTeX extensions

While MathJax includes nearly all of the Plain TeX math macros, and many of the LaTeX macros and environments,
not everything is implemented in the core TeX input processor. Some less-used commands are defined in extensions to
the TeX processor. MathJax will load some extensions automatically when you first use the commands they implement
(for example, the \color macro is implemented in the color extension, but MathJax loads this extension itself when
you use that macro). While most extensions are set up to load automatically, there are a few that you would need to
load explicitly yourself. See the autoload extension below for how to configure which extensions to autoload.

16.6.1 Loading TeX Extensions

To enable one of the TeX extensions you need to do two things: load the extension, and configure TeX to include it in
its package setup. For the first, to load an extension as a component, add its name to the load array in the loader
block of your MathJax configuration. For example, to load the color extension, add '[tex]/color' to the load
array, as in the example below. To do the second, add the extension name to packages array in the tex block of
your configuration. You can use the special '[+]' notation to append it to the default packages (so you don’t need to
know what they are). For example:

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/color']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['color']}}
};

will load the color extension and configure the TeX input jax to enable it.
A number of extensions are already loaded and configured in the components that contain the TeX extension.
The input/tex, and the combined components containing tex and not ending in -full include the ams,
newcommand, noUndefined, require, autoload, and configMacros extensions, with the other exten-
sions being autoloaded as needed. The input/tex-base component has no extensions loaded, while the input/
tex-full and the combined extensions ending in -full load all the extensions.
If you load a component that has an extension you don’t want to use, you can disable it by removing it from the
package array in the tex block of your MathJax configuration. For example, to disable \require and autoloading
of extensions, use

window.MathJax = {
tex: {packages: {'[-]': ['require', 'autoload']}}
};

if you are using, for example, the tex-chtml.js combined component file.

16.6.2 Loading Extensions at Run Time

You can also load these extensions from within a math expression using the non-standard \require{extension}
macro. For example

\(\require{color}\)

would load the color extension into the page. This way you you can load extensions into pages that didn’t load them
in their configurations (and prevents you from having to load all the extensions into all pages even if they aren’t used).

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16.6.3 Configuring TeX Extensions

Some extensions have options that control their behavior. For example, the color extension allows you to set the
padding and border-width used for the \colorbox and \fcolorbox macros. Such extensions are configured
using a block within the tex configuration of your MathJax configuration object. The block has the same name as the
extension, and contains the options you want to set for that extension. For example,

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/color']},
tex: {
packages: {'[+]': ['color']},
color: {
padding: '5px'
}
}
};

would set the padding for \colorbox to be 5 pixels.

See the Configuring MathJax section for details about the options for each of the extensions below.
For extensions that are not loaded explicitly but may be loaded via the autoload package or the \require macro,
you can’t include the configuration within the tex block, because MathJax will not know the options that are available
(since the extension hasn’t been loaded yet). In that case, move the configuration block to the top level of the MathJax
configuration object and prefix it with [tex]/, as in:

window.MathJax = {
'[tex]/color': {
padding: '5px'
}
};

16.7 The TeX/LaTeX Extension List

The main extensions are described below:

16.7.1 action

The action extension gives you access to the MathML <maction> element. It defines three new non-standard
macros:
\mathtip{math}{tip}
Use tip (in math mode) as tooltip for math.
\texttip{math}{tip}
Use tip (plain text) as tooltip for math.
\toggle{math1}{math2}...\endtoggle
Show math1, and when clicked, show math2, and so on. When the last one is clicked, go back to math1.
This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the action extension explicitly,
add '[tex]/action' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'action'
to the packages array of the tex block.

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window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/action']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['action']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{action} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the
page, if the require package is loaded.

16.7.2 ams

The ams extension implements AMS math environments and macros, and macros for accessing the characters in the
AMS symbol fonts. This extension is already loaded in all the components that include the TeX input jax, other than
input/tex-base. See the list of control sequences for details about what commands are implemented in this
extension.
To load the ams extension explicitly (when using input/tex-base for example), add '[tex]/ams' to the load
array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'ams' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/ams']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['ams']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{ams} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the page, if
the require extension is loaded.

16.7.3 amsCd

The amsCd extensions implements the CD environment for commutative diagrams. See the AMScd guide for more
information on how to use the CD environment.
This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the amsCd extension explicitly,
add '[tex]/amsCd' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'amsCd'
to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/amsCd']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['amsCd']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{amsCd} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the page,
if the require extension is loaded.

16.7.4 autoload

The autoload extension predefines all the macros from the extensions that haven’t been loaded already so that they
automatically load the needed extension when they are first used, with the exception of the physics package, since it
redefines standard macros, and the ams package, due to the large number of macros it contains.
The autoload extension is loaded in all the components that include the TeX input jax, other than input/tex-base.
That means that the TeX input jax essentially has access to all the extensions, even if they aren’t loaded initially, and
you should never have to use \require or load other extensions (except physics) explicitly unless you want to.

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You can control which extensions autoload will load using the autoload object in the tex block of your MathJax
configuration. This object contains key: value pairs where the key is the name of an extension, and value is an array
listing the macro names that cause that extension to be loaded. If environments can also cause the extension to be
loaded, value is an array consisting of two sub-arrays, the first being the names of the macros that cause the extension
to autoload, and the second being the names of the environments that cause the extension to be loaded.
For example,

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
autoload: {
verb: ['verb']
}
}
};

says that the \verb command should load the verb extension when it is first used.
If the array is empty, then that extension will not be loaded, so to prevent autoload from loading an extension, assign
it the empty array. E.g.,

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
autoload: {
verb: []
}
}
};

says that the verb extension will not be autoloaded.

Note: The autoload extension defines \color to be the one from the color extension (the LaTeX-compatible one
rather than the non-standard MathJax version). If you wish to use the non-standard version-2 \color macro from
the colorV2 extension instead, use the following:

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
autoload: {
color: [],
colorV2: ['color']
}
}
};

16.7.5 bbox

The bbox extension defines a new macro for adding background colors, borders, and padding to your math expressions.
\bbox[options]{math}
puts a bounding box around math using the provided options. The options can be one of the following:
1. A color name used for the background color.
2. A dimension (e.g., 2px) to be used as a padding around the mathematics (on all sides).
3. Style attributes to be applied to the mathematics (e.g., border: 1px solid red).

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4. A combination of these separated by commas.

Here are some examples:

\bbox[red]{x+y} % a red box behind x+y

\bbox[2pt]{x+1} % an invisible box around x+y with 2pt of extra space
\bbox[red,2pt]{x+1} % a red box around x+y with 2pt of extra space
\bbox[5px, border: 2px solid red]
% a 2px red border around the math 5px away

This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the bbox extension explicitly, add
'[tex]/bbox' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'bbox' to the
packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/bbox']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['bbox']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{bbox} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the page,
if the require extension is loaded.

16.7.6 boldsymbol

The boldsymbol extension defines the \boldsymbol LaTeX macro that produces a bold version of its argument,
provided bold versions of the required characters are available.
This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the boldsymbol extension explic-
itly (when using input/tex-base for example), add '[tex]/boldsymbol' to the load array of the loader
block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'boldsymbol' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/boldsymbol']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['boldsymbol']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{boldsymbol} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on
the page, if the require extension is loaded.

16.7.7 braket

The braket extension defines the following macros for producing the bra-ket notation and set notation used in quantum
mechanics
\bra{math}
\ket{math}
\braket{math}
\set{math}
\Bra{math}
\Ket{math}
\Braket{math}
\Set{math}
and the non-standard macros
\ketbra{math}

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\Ketbra{math}
See the documentation for the LaTeX braket package for details of how these are used.
This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the braket extension explicitly
(when using input/tex-base for example), add '[tex]/braket' to the load array of the loader block of
your MathJax configuration, and add 'braket' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/braket']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['braket']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{braket} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the
page, if the require extension is loaded.

16.7.8 cancel

The cancel extension defines the following macros:

\cancel{math}
Strikeout math from lower left to upper right.
\bcancel{math}
Strikeout math from upper left to lower right.
\xcancel{math}
Strikeout math with an “X”.
\cancelto{value}{math}
Strikeout math with an arrow going to value.
This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the cancel extension explicitly,
add '[tex]/cancel' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'cancel'
to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/cancel']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['cancel']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{cancel} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the
page, if the require extension is loaded.

16.7.9 color

The color extension defines the \color macro as in the LaTeX color package, along with \colorbox,
\fcolorbox, and \definecolor. It declares the standard set of colors (Apricot, Aquamarine, Bittersweet, and
so on), and provides the RGB, rgb, and grey-scale color spaces in addition to named colors.
This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the color extension explicitly,
add '[tex]/color' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'color'
to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/color']},
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(continued from previous page)

tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['color']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{color} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the page,
if the require extension is loaded.

Note: In version 2, a non-standard \color macro was the default implementation, but in version 3, the standard
LaTeX one is now the default. The difference between the two is that the standard \color macro is a switch
(everything that follows it is in the new color), whereas the non-standard version 2 \color macro takes an argument
that is the mathematics to be colored. That is, in version 2, you would do

\color{red}{x} + \color{blue}{y}

to get a red x added to a blue y. But in version 3 (and in LaTeX itself), you would do

{\color{red} x} + {\color{blue} y}

If you want the old version 2 behavior, use the colorV2 extension instead.

16.7.10 colorV2

The colorV2 extension defines the \color macro to be the non-standard macro that is the default in MathJax version
2, namely, it takes two arguments, one the name of the color (or an HTML color of the form #RGB or #RRGGBB), and
the second the math to be colored. This is in contrast to the standard LaTeX \color command, which is a switch
that changes the color of everything that follows it.
This extension is not loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the color extension explicitly,
add '[tex]/color' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'color'
to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/colorV2']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['color']}}
};

or, use \require{colorV2} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the page, if the
require extension is loaded.
Alternatively, you can configure the autoload package to load colorV2 when \color is used rather than the (LaTeX-
compatible) color extension:

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
autoload: {
color: [], // don't autoload the color extension
colorV2: ['color'] // autoload colorV2 on the first use of \color
}
}
};

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16.7.11 configMacros

The configMacros extension provides the macros configuration option for the tex block of your MathJax configu-
ration. This allows you to predefine custom macros for your page using javascript. For example,

window.MathJax = {
tex: {
macros: {
RR: "{\\bf R}",
bold: ["{\\bf #1}", 1]
}
}
};

defines a macro \RR that produces a bold “R”, while \bold{math} typesets the math using the bold font. See
Defining TeX macros for more information.
This extension is already loaded in all the components that include the TeX input jax, other than input/
tex-base. To load the configMacros extension explicitly (when using input/tex-base for example), add
'[tex]/configMacros' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add
'configMacros' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/configMacros']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['configMacros']}}
};

16.7.12 enclose

The enclose extension gives you access to the MathML <menclose> element for adding boxes, ovals, strikethroughs,
and other marks over your mathematics. It defines the following non-standard macro:
\enclose{notation}[attributes]{math}
Where notation is a comma-separated list of MathML <menclose> notations (e.g., circle, left,
updiagonalstrike, longdiv, etc.), attributes are MathML attribute values allowed on the
<menclose> element (e.g., mathcolor="red", mathbackground="yellow"), and math is the
mathematics to be enclosed. See the MathML 3 specification for more details on <menclose>.
For example

\enclose{circle}[mathcolor="red"]{x}
\enclose{circle}[mathcolor="red"]{\color{black}{x}}
\enclose{circle,box}{x}
\enclose{circle}{\enclose{box}{x}}

This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the enclose extension explic-
itly, add '[tex]/enclose' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add
'enclose' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/enclose']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['enclose']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{enclose} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the
page, if the require extension is loaded.

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16.7.13 extpfeil

The extpfeil extension adds more macros for producing extensible arrows, including \xtwoheadrightarrow,
\xtwoheadleftarrow, \xmapsto, \xlongequal, \xtofrom, and a non-standard \Newextarrow for cre-
ating your own extensible arrows. The latter has the form
\Newextarrow{\cs}{lspace,rspace}{unicode-char}
where \cs is the new control sequence name to be defined, lspace and rspace are integers representing
the amount of space (in suitably small units) to use at the left and right of text that is placed above or below
the arrow, and unicode-char is a number representing a unicode character position in either decimal or
hexadecimal notation.
For example

\Newextarrow{\xrightharpoonup}{5,10}{0x21C0}

defines an extensible right harpoon with barb up. Note that MathJax knows how to stretch only a limited number of
characters, so you may not actually get a stretchy character this way. The characters that can be stretched may also
depend on the font you have selected.
This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the extpfeil extension explic-
itly, add '[tex]/extpfeil' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add
'extpfeil' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/extpfeil']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['extpfeil']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{extpfeil} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the
page, if the require extension is loaded.

16.7.14 html

The html extension gives you access to some HTML features like styles, classes, element ID’s, and clickable links. It
defines the following non-standard macros:
\href{url}{math}
Makes math be a link to the page given by url.
\class{name}{math}
Attaches the CSS class name to the output associated with math when it is included in the HTML page. This
allows your CSS to style the element.
\cssId{id}{math}
Attaches an id attribute with value id to the output associated with math when it is included in the HTML
page. This allows your CSS to style the element, or your javascript to locate it on the page.
\style{css}{math}
Adds the give css declarations to the element associated with math.
For example:

x \href{why-equal.html}{=} y^2 + 1

(x+1)^2 = \class{hidden}{(x+1)(x+1)}

(x+1)^2 = \cssId{step1}{\style{visibility:hidden}{(x+1)(x+1)}}

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This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the html extension explicitly, add
'[tex]/html' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'html' to the
packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/html']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['html']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{html} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the page,
if the require extension is loaded.

16.7.15 mhchem

The mhchem extensions implements the \ce and \pu chemical equation macros of the LaTeX mhchem package. See
the mhchem home page for more information and documentation for mhchem.
For example

\ce{C6H5-CHO}
\ce{$A$ ->[\ce{+H2O}] $B$}
\ce{SO4^2- + Ba^2+ -> BaSO4 v}

This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the mhchem extension explicitly,
add '[tex]/mhchem' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'mhchem'
to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/mhchem']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['mhchem']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{mhchem} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the
page, if the require extension is loaded.

Note: The implementation of the mhchem extension was completely rewritten for MathJax by the author of the
original LaTeX package. The older version was still available MathJax version 2.7, but it is no longer part of MathJax
version 3. Only the newer version of mhchem is available.

16.7.16 newcommand

The newcommand extension provides the \def, \newcommand, \renewcommand, \let, \newenvironment,
and \renewenvironment macros for creating new macros and environments in TeX. For example,

\(
\def\RR{{\bf R}}
\def\bold#1{{\bf #1}}
\)

defines a macro \RR that produces a bold “R”, while \bold{math} typesets its argument using a bold font. See
Defining TeX macros for more information.

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This extension is already loaded in all the components that include the TeX input jax, other than input/tex-base.
To load the newcommand extension explicitly (when using input/tex-base for example), add '[tex]/
newcommand' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'newcommand'
to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/newcommand']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['newcommand']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{newcommand} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on
the page, if the require package is loaded.

16.7.17 noerrors

The noerrors extension prevents TeX error messages from being displayed and shows the original TeX code instead.

Note: In version 2 of MathJax, you could configure the CSS that applied to the display of the original TeX. In version
3, the original TeX is shown via an merror MathML element instead.

Note: In version 2, this extension was included in all the combined configuration files that contain the TeX input jax,
but in MathJax version 3, you must load it explicitly if you want to use it.

To load the noerrors extension, add '[tex]/noerrors' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax
configuration, and add 'noerrors' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/noerrors']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['noerrors']}}
};

16.7.18 noundefined

The noundefined extension causes undefined control sequences to be shown as their macro names rather than gen-
erating error messages. So $X_{\xyz}$ would display as an “X” with a subscript consisting of the text \xyz in
red.

Note: In version 2, the styling for the undefined macro could be configured. In version 3, this is not yet implemented.

This extension is already loaded in all the components that include the TeX input jax, other than input/tex-base.
To load the ams extension explicitly (when using input/tex-base for example), add '[tex]/noundefined'
to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'noundefined' to the packages
array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/noundefined']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['noundefined']}}
};

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16.7.19 physics

The physics extension implements much of the LaTeX physics package, which defines simple, yet flexible macros for
typesetting equations via:
• Automatic bracing
• Vector notation
• Derivatives
• Dirac bra-ket notation
• Matrix macros
• Additional trig functions and other convenient operators
• Flat fractions and other useful miscellaneous math macros
See the documentation for the LaTeX package for more information.
This package is not autoloaded, due to the fact that it redefines many standard macros, so you must request it explicitly
if you want to use it. To load the physics extension, add '[tex]/physics' to the load array of the loader
block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'physics' to the packages array of the tex block.
window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/physics']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['physics']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{physics} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the
page, if the require package is loaded.

16.7.20 require

The require extension defines the non-standard \require macro that allows you to load extensions from within a
math expression in a web page. For example:
\(\require{enclose} \enclose{circle}{x}\)

would load the enclose extension, making the following \enclose command available for use.
An extension only needs to be loaded once, and then it is available for all subsequent typeset expressions.
This extension is already loaded in all the components that include the TeX input jax, other than input/tex-base.
To load the require extension explicitly (when using input/tex-base for example), add '[tex]/require' to
the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add 'require' to the packages array
of the tex block.
window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/require']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['require']}}
};

16.7.21 tagFormat

The tagFormat extension provides the ability to customize the format of the equation tags and automatic equation num-
bers. You do this by providing functions in the tagFormat object of the tex block of your MathJax configuration.
The functions you can provide are listed in the TagFormat Options section.

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For example,
MathJax = {
section: 1,
tex: {
tagFormat: {
number: (n) => MathJax.config.section + '.' + n,
id: (tag) => 'eqn-id-' + tag
}
},
startup: {
ready() {
MathJax.startup.defaultReady();
MathJax.startup.input[0].preFilters.add(({math}) => {
if (math.inputData.recompile) {
MathJax.config.section = math.inputData.recompile.section;
}
});
MathJax.startup.input[0].postFilters.add(({math}) => {
if (math.inputData.recompile) {
math.inputData.recompile.section = MathJax.config.section;
}
});
}
}
};

arranges for automatic equation numbers to be of the form 1.n, and uses ids of the form eqn-id-1.n as the id
attribute of the tags within the web page. It also sets up pre- and -post-filters for the TeX input jax that arrange for the
section number to be properly handled for automatically numbered equations that contain forward references to later
expressions. This example uses the modern function notation (using =>), but you could also use function (n)
{return ...}.
You can adjust the section numnber using JavaScript by setting the MathJax.config.section variable. It is
also possible to create TeX macros for controlling the section number. Here is one possibility:
MathJax = {
startup: {
ready() {
const Configuration = MathJax._.input.tex.Configuration.Configuration;
const CommandMap = MathJax._.input.tex.SymbolMap.CommandMap;
new CommandMap('sections', {
nextSection: 'NextSection',
setSection: 'SetSection',
}, {
NextSection(parser, name) {
MathJax.config.section++;
parser.tags.counter = parser.tags.allCounter = 0;
},
SetSection(parser, name) {
const n = parser.GetArgument(name);
MathJax.config.section = parseInt(n);
}
});
Configuration.create(
'sections', {handler: {macro: ['sections']}}
);
MathJax.startup.defaultReady();
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}
}
};

(Of course, you will want to merge this configuraiton in with the rest of your configuration options.)
This makes two new macros available: \nextSection, which increments the section counter, and
\setSection{n}, which sets the section number to n. These must be issues within math delimiters in order
for MathJax to process them. In order to prevent them from producing any output in your page, you could enclose
them within a hidden element. For example,

<span style="display: hidden">\(\nextSection\)</span>

or something similar.
To load the tagFormat extension, add '[tex]/tagFormat' to the load array of the loader block of your
MathJax configuration, and add 'tagFormat' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/tagFormat']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['tagFormat']}}
};

16.7.22 unicode

The unicode extension implements a (non-standard) \unicode{} macro that allows arbitrary unicode code points
to be entered in your mathematics. You can specify the height and depth of the character (the width is determined by
the browser), and the default font from which to take the character.
Examples:

\unicode{65} % the character 'A'

\unicode{x41} % the character 'A'
\unicode[.55,0.05]{x22D6} % less-than with dot, with height .55em and depth
˓→0.05em

\unicode[.55,0.05][Geramond]{x22D6} % same taken from Geramond font

\unicode[Garamond]{x22D6} % same, but with default height, depth of .8em,.
˓→2em

Once a size and font are provided for a given unicode point, they need not be specified again in subsequent
\unicode{} calls for that character.
The result of \unicode{...} will have TeX class ORD (i.e., it will act like a variable). Use \mathbin{...},
\mathrel{...}, etc., to specify a different class.
Note that a font list can be given in the \unicode{} macro. If not is provided, MathJax will use its own fonts, if
possible, and then the default font list for unknown characters if not.

Note: In version 2, you could configure the default font to be used for \unicode characters if one wasn’t given
explicitly. This has not been implemented in version 3.

This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the unicode extension explic-
itly, add '[tex]/unicode' to the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, and add
'unicode' to the packages array of the tex block.

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window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/unicode']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['unicode']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{unicode} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the
page, if the require extension is loaded.

16.7.23 verb

The verb extension defines the \verb LaTeX macro that typesets its argument “verbatim” (without further process-
ing) in a monospaced (typewriter) font. The first character after the \verb command is used as a delimiter for the
argument, which is everything up to the next copy of the delimiter character). E.g.

\verb|\sqrt{x}|

will typeset \sqrt{x} as a literal string.

Note that, due to how MathJax locates math strings within the document, the argument to \verb must have balanced
braces, so \verb|{| is not valid in a web page (use \mathtt{\{} instead). If you are passing TeX strings to
MathJax.tex2svg() or MathJax.tex2chtml(), however, braces don’t have to be balanced. So

const html = MathJax.tex2chtml('\\verb|{|');

is valid.
This extension is loaded automatically when the autoload extension is used. To load the verb extension explicitly
(when using input/tex-base for example), add '[tex]/verb' to the load array of the loader block of
your MathJax configuration, and add 'verb' to the packages array of the tex block.

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/verb']},
tex: {packages: {'[+]': ['verb']}}
};

Alternatively, use \require{verb} in a TeX expression to load it dynamically from within the math on the page,
if the require extension is loaded.
These extensions have not yet been ported to version 3:

16.7.24 autobold

The autobold extension is no longer available in MathJax version 3.

16.7.25 autoload-all

The autoload-all extension has been replaced by the autoload extension, which is more easily configurable.

16.7.26 begingroup

The begingroup extension has not yet been translated to version 3, so currently it is not available. It should be included
in a future release of MathJax.

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16.7.27 mediawiki-texvc

The mediawiki-texvc extension predefines macros that match the behavior of the MediaWiki Math Extension.
This extension has not yet been translated to version 3, so currently it is not available. It should be included in a future
release of MathJax.
See the A Custom Extension section for how to create your own TeX extension.

16.8 Supported TeX/LaTeX commands

This is a long list of the TeX macros supported by MathJax. If the macro is defined in an extension, the name of the
extension follows the macro name. If the extension is in brackets, the extension will be loaded automatically when the
macro or environment is first used.
More complete details about how to use these macros, with examples and explanations, is available at Carol Fisher’s
TeX Commands Available in MathJax page.
In the following tables, the first column lists the macro (or character, or environment), and the second column indicates
which package(s) defines the macro. If none is listed, then it is in the base package. If the package name is in bold,
then it is preloaded by the components that include the TeX input jax (except for input/tex-base, which only
includes the base package). If the package name is in italics, then the package is not autoloaded by the autoload
extension.

16.8.1 Symbols

&
#
%
^
~
_
'
’
{
}
\ (backslash-space)
\_
\,
\;
\:
\!
\{
\}
\\
\&
\#
\%
\>
\|
\$

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16.8.2 A

\above
\abovewithdelims
\abs physics
\absolutevalue physics
\acomm physics
\acos physics
\acosecant physics
\acosine physics
\acot physics
\acotangent physics
\acsc physics
\acute
\admat physics
\aleph
\alpha
\amalg
\And
\angle
\anticommutator physics
\antidiagonalmatrix physics
\approx
\approxeq ams
\arccos base, physics
\arccosecant physics
\arccosine physics
\arccot physics
\arccotangent physics
\arccsc physics
\arcsec physics
\arcsecant physics
\arcsin base, physics
\arcsine physics
\arctan base, physics
\arctangent physics
\arg
\array
\Arrowvert
\arrowvert
\asec physics
\asecant physics
\asin physics
\asine physics
\ast
\asymp
\atan physics
\atangent physics
\atop
\atopwithdelims

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16.8.3 B

\backepsilon ams
\backprime ams
\backsim ams
\backsimeq ams
\backslash
\bar
\barwedge ams
\Bbb
\Bbbk ams
\bbFont
\bbox bbox
\bcancel cancel
\because ams
\begin
\beta
\beth ams
\between ams
\bf
\Big
\big
\bigcap
\bigcirc
\bigcup
\Bigg
\bigg
\Biggl
\biggl
\Biggm
\biggm
\Biggr
\biggr
\Bigl
\bigl
\Bigm
\bigm
\bigodot
\bigoplus
\bigotimes
\Bigr
\bigr
\bigsqcup
\bigstar ams
\bigtriangledown
\bigtriangleup
\biguplus
\bigvee
\bigwedge
\binom ams
Continued on next page

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\blacklozenge ams
\blacksquare ams
\blacktriangle ams
\blacktriangledown ams
\blacktriangleleft ams
\blacktriangleright ams
\bmod
\bmqty physics
\boldsymbol boldsymbol
\bot
\bowtie
\Box ams
\boxdot ams
\boxed ams
\boxminus ams
\boxplus ams
\boxtimes ams
\Bqty physics
\bqty physics
\Bra braket
\bra braket, physics
\brace
\bracevert
\brack
\Braket braket
\braket braket, physics
\breve
\buildrel
\bullet
\Bumpeq ams
\bumpeq ams

16.8.4 C

\cal
\cancel cancel
\cancelto cancel
\Cap ams
\cap
\cases
\cdot
\cdotp
\cdots
\ce mhchem
\centerdot ams
\cfrac ams
\check
\checkmark ams
\chi
Continued on next page

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Table 3 – continued from previous page

\choose
\circ
\circeq ams
\circlearrowleft ams
\circlearrowright ams
\circledast ams
\circledcirc ams
\circleddash ams
\circledR ams
\circledS ams
\class html
\clubsuit
\colon
\color color, colorV2
\colorbox color
\comm physics
\commutator physics
\complement ams
\cong
\coprod
\cos base, physics
\cosecant physics
\cosh base, physics
\cosine physics
\cot base, physics
\cotangent physics
\coth base, physics
\cp physics
\cr
\cross physics
\crossproduct physics
\csc base, physics
\csch physics
\cssId html
\Cup ams
\cup
\curl physics
\curlyeqprec ams
\curlyeqsucc ams
\curlyvee ams
\curlywedge ams
\curvearrowleft ams
\curvearrowright ams

16.8.5 D

\dagger
\daleth ams
\dashleftarrow ams
Continued on next page

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\dashrightarrow ams
\dashv
\dbinom ams
\dd physics
\ddagger
\ddddot ams
\dddot ams
\ddot
\ddots
\DeclareMathOperator ams
\def newcommand
\definecolor color
\deg
\Delta
\delta
\derivative physics
\det base, physics
\determinant physics
\dfrac ams
\diagdown ams
\diagonalmatrix physics
\diagup ams
\Diamond ams
\diamond
\diamondsuit
\differential physics
\digamma ams
\dim
\displaylines
\displaystyle
\div base, physics
\divergence physics
\divideontimes ams
\dmat physics
\dot
\Doteq ams
\doteq
\doteqdot ams
\dotplus ams
\dotproduct physics
\dots
\dotsb
\dotsc
\dotsi
\dotsm
\dotso
\doublebarwedge ams
\doublecap ams
\doublecup ams
\Downarrow
Continued on next page

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Table 4 – continued from previous page

\downarrow
\downdownarrows ams
\downharpoonleft ams
\downharpoonright ams
\dv physics
\dyad physics

16.8.6 E

\ell
\emptyset
\enclose enclose
\end
\enspace
\epsilon
\eqalign
\eqalignno
\eqcirc ams
\eqref ams
\eqsim ams
\eqslantgtr ams
\eqslantless ams
\equiv
\erf physics
\eta
\eth ams
\ev physics
\eval physics
\evaluated physics
\exists
\exp base, physics
\expectationvalue physics
\exponential physics
\expval physics

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16.8.7 F

\fallingdotseq ams
\fbox
\fcolorbox color
\fderivative physics
\fdv physics
\Finv ams
\flat
\flatfrac physics
\forall
\frac ams, base
\frak
\frown
\functionalderivative physics

16.8.8 G

\Game ams
\Gamma
\gamma
\gcd
\ge
\genfrac ams
\geq
\geqq ams
\geqslant ams
\gets
\gg
\ggg ams
\gggtr ams
\gimel ams
\gnapprox ams
\gneq ams
\gneqq ams
\gnsim ams
\grad physics
\gradient physics
\gradientnabla physics
\grave
\gt
\gtrapprox ams
\gtrdot ams
\gtreqless ams
\gtreqqless ams
\gtrless ams
\gtrsim ams
\gvertneqq ams

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16.8.9 H

\hat
\hbar
\hbox
\hdashline
\heartsuit
\hfil
\hfill
\hfilll
\hline
\hom
\hookleftarrow
\hookrightarrow
\hphantom
\href html
\hskip
\hslash ams
\hspace
\Huge
\huge
\hypcosecant physics
\hypcosine physics
\hypcotangent physics
\hypsecant physics
\hypsine physics
\hyptangent physics

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16.8.10 I

\identitymatrix physics
\idotsint ams
\iff
\iiiint ams
\iiint
\iint
\Im base, physics
\imaginary physics
\imat physics
\imath
\impliedby ams
\implies ams
\in
\inf
\infty
\injlim ams
\innerproduct physics
\int
\intercal ams
\intop
\iota
\it

16.8.11 J

\jmath
\Join ams

16.8.12 K

\kappa
\ker
\kern
\Ket braket
\ket braket, physics
\Ketbra braket
\ketbra braket, physics

16.8.13 L

\label
\Lambda
\lambda
Continued on next page

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Table 5 – continued from previous page

\land
\langle
\laplacian physics
\LARGE
\Large
\large
\LaTeX
\lbrace
\lbrack
\lceil
\ldotp
\ldots
\le
\leadsto ams
\left
\Leftarrow
\leftarrow
\leftarrowtail ams
\leftharpoondown
\leftharpoonup
\leftleftarrows ams
\Leftrightarrow
\leftrightarrow
\leftrightarrows ams
\leftrightharpoons ams
\leftrightsquigarrow ams
\leftroot
\leftthreetimes ams
\leq
\leqalignno
\leqq ams
\leqslant ams
\lessapprox ams
\lessdot ams
\lesseqgtr ams
\lesseqqgtr ams
\lessgtr ams
\lesssim ams
\let newcommand
\lfloor
\lg
\lgroup
\lhd ams
\lim
\liminf
\limits
\limsup
\ll
\llap
\llcorner ams
Continued on next page

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\Lleftarrow ams
\lll ams
\llless ams
\lmoustache
\ln base, physics
\lnapprox ams
\lneq ams
\lneqq ams
\lnot
\lnsim ams
\log base, physics
\logarithm physics
\Longleftarrow
\longleftarrow
\Longleftrightarrow
\longleftrightarrow
\longleftrightarrows mhchem
\longLeftrightharpoons mhchem
\longmapsto
\Longrightarrow
\longrightarrow
\longRightleftharpoons mhchem
\longrightleftharpoons mhchem
\looparrowleft ams
\looparrowright ams
\lor
\lower
\lozenge ams
\lrcorner ams
\Lsh ams
\lt
\ltimes ams
\lVert ams
\lvert ams
\lvertneqq ams

16.8.14 M

\maltese ams
\mapsto
\mathbb
\mathbf
\mathbin
\mathcal
\mathchoice
\mathclose
\mathfrak
\mathinner
\mathit
Continued on next page

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Table 6 – continued from previous page

\mathop
\mathopen
\mathord
\mathpunct
\mathrel
\mathring ams
\mathrm
\mathscr
\mathsf
\mathstrut
\mathtip action
\mathtt
\matrix
\matrixdeterminant physics
\matrixel physics
\matrixelement physics
\matrixquantity physics
\max
\mbox
\mdet physics
\measuredangle ams
\mel physics
\mho ams
\mid
\middle
\min
\minCDarrowheight amsCd
\minCDarrowwidth amsCd
\mit
\mkern
\mmlToken
\mod
\models
\moveleft
\moveright
\mp
\mqty physics
\mskip
\mspace
\mu
\multimap ams

16.8.15 N

\nabla
\natural
\naturallogarithm physics
\ncong ams
\ne
Continued on next page

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\nearrow
\neg
\negmedspace ams
\negthickspace ams
\negthinspace
\neq
\newcommand newcommand
\newenvironment newcommand
\Newextarrow extpfeil
\newline
\nexists ams
\ngeq ams
\ngeqq ams
\ngeqslant ams
\ngtr ams
\ni
\nLeftarrow ams
\nleftarrow ams
\nLeftrightarrow ams
\nleftrightarrow ams
\nleq ams
\nleqq ams
\nleqslant ams
\nless ams
\nmid ams
\nobreakspace ams
\nolimits
\nonumber
\norm physics
\normalsize
\not
\notag ams
\notChar
\notin
\nparallel ams
\nprec ams
\npreceq ams
\nRightarrow ams
\nrightarrow ams
\nshortmid ams
\nshortparallel ams
\nsim ams
\nsubseteq ams
\nsubseteqq ams
\nsucc ams
\nsucceq ams
\nsupseteq ams
\nsupseteqq ams
\ntriangleleft ams
\ntrianglelefteq ams
Continued on next page

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\ntriangleright ams
\ntrianglerighteq ams
\nu
\nVDash ams
\nVdash ams
\nvDash ams
\nvdash ams
\nwarrow

16.8.16 O

\odot
\oint
\oldstyle
\Omega
\omega
\omicron
\ominus
\op physics
\operatorname ams
\oplus
\order physics
\oslash
\otimes
\outerproduct physics
\over
\overbrace
\overleftarrow
\overleftrightarrow
\overline
\overparen
\overrightarrow
\overset
\overwithdelims
\owns

16.8.17 P

\parallel
\partial
\partialderivative physics
\paulimatrix physics
\pb physics
\pderivative physics
\pdv physics
\perp
\phantom
\Phi
Continued on next page

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\phi
\Pi
\pi
\pitchfork ams
\pm
\pmat physics
\pmatrix
\pmb
\pmod
\Pmqty physics
\pmqty physics
\pod
\poissonbracket physics
\pqty physics
\Pr base, physics
\prec
\precapprox ams
\preccurlyeq ams
\preceq
\precnapprox ams
\precneqq ams
\precnsim ams
\precsim ams
\prime
\principalvalue physics
\Probability physics
\prod
\projlim ams
\propto
\Psi
\psi
\pu mhchem
\PV physics
\pv physics

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16.8.18 Q

\qall physics
\qand physics
\qas physics
\qassume physics
\qc physics
\qcc physics
\qcomma physics
\qelse physics
\qeven physics
\qfor physics
\qgiven physics
\qif physics
\qin physics
\qinteger physics
\qlet physics
\qodd physics
\qor physics
\qotherwise physics
\qq physics
\qqtext physics
\qquad
\qsince, physics
\qthen physics
\qty physics
\quad
\quantity physics
\qunless physics
\qusing physics

16.8.19 R

\raise
\rangle
\rank physics
\rbrace
\rbrack
\rceil
\Re base, physics
\real physics
\ref
\renewcommand newcommand
\renewenvironment newcommand
\require require
\Res physics
\restriction ams
\rfloor
\rgroup
Continued on next page

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\rhd ams
\rho
\right
\Rightarrow
\rightarrow
\rightarrowtail ams
\rightharpoondown
\rightharpoonup
\rightleftarrows ams
\rightleftharpoons ams, base
\rightrightarrows ams
\rightsquigarrow ams
\rightthreetimes ams
\risingdotseq ams
\rlap
\rm
\rmoustache
\root
\Rrightarrow ams
\Rsh ams
\rtimes ams
\Rule
\rule
\rVert ams
\rvert ams

16.8.20 S

\S
\sbmqty physics
\scr
\scriptscriptstyle
\scriptsize
\scriptstyle
\searrow
\sec base, physics
\secant physics
\sech physics
\Set braket
\set braket
\setminus
\sf
\sharp
\shortmid ams
\shortparallel ams
\shoveleft ams
\shoveright ams
\sideset ams
\Sigma
Continued on next page

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Table 10 – continued from previous page

\sigma
\sim
\simeq
\sin base, physics
\sine physics
\sinh base, physics
\skew
\SkipLimits ams
\small
\smallfrown ams
\smallint
\smallmatrixquantity physics
\smallsetminus ams
\smallsmile ams
\smash
\smdet physics
\smile
\smqty physics
\Space
\space
\spadesuit
\sphericalangle ams
\sPmqty physics
\spmqty physics
\sqcap
\sqcup
\sqrt
\sqsubset ams
\sqsubseteq
\sqsupset ams
\sqsupseteq
\square ams
\stackrel
\star
\strut
\style html
\Subset ams
\subset
\subseteq
\subseteqq ams
\subsetneq ams
\subsetneqq ams
\substack ams
\succ
\succapprox ams
\succcurlyeq ams
\succeq
\succnapprox ams
\succneqq ams
\succnsim ams
Continued on next page

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\succsim ams
\sum
\sup
\Supset ams
\supset
\supseteq
\supseteqq ams
\supsetneq ams
\supsetneqq ams
\surd
\svmqty physics
\swarrow

16.8.21 T

\tag ams
\tan base, physics
\tangent physics
\tanh base, physics
\tau
\tbinom ams
\TeX
\text
\textbf
\textcolor color
\textit
\textrm
\textsf
\textstyle
\texttip action
\texttt
\tfrac ams
\therefore ams
\Theta
\theta
\thickapprox ams
\thicksim ams
\thinspace
\tilde
\times
\Tiny
\tiny
\to
\toggle action
\top
\Tr physics
\tr physics
\Trace physics
\trace physics
Continued on next page

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\triangle
\triangledown ams
\triangleleft
\trianglelefteq ams
\triangleq ams
\triangleright
\trianglerighteq ams
\tripledash mhchem
\tt
\twoheadleftarrow ams
\twoheadrightarrow ams

16.8.22 U

\ulcorner ams
\underbrace
\underleftarrow
\underleftrightarrow
\underline
\underparen
\underrightarrow
\underset
\unicode unicode
\unlhd ams
\unrhd ams
\Uparrow
\uparrow
\Updownarrow
\updownarrow
\upharpoonleft ams
\upharpoonright ams
\uplus
\uproot
\Upsilon
\upsilon
\upuparrows ams
\urcorner ams

16.8.23 V

\va physics
\var physics
\varDelta ams
\varepsilon
\varGamma ams
\variation physics
\varinjlim ams
\varkappa ams
Continued on next page

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\varLambda ams
\varliminf ams
\varlimsup ams
\varnothing ams
\varOmega ams
\varPhi ams
\varphi
\varPi ams
\varpi
\varprojlim ams
\varpropto ams
\varPsi ams
\varrho
\varSigma ams
\varsigma
\varsubsetneq ams
\varsubsetneqq ams
\varsupsetneq ams
\varsupsetneqq ams
\varTheta ams
\vartheta
\vartriangle ams
\vartriangleleft ams
\vartriangleright ams
\varUpsilon ams
\varXi ams
\vb physics
\vcenter
\Vdash ams
\vDash ams
\vdash
\vdot physics
\vdots
\vec
\vectorarrow physics
\vectorbold physics
\vectorunit physics
\vee
\veebar ams
\verb verb
\Vert
\vert
\vmqty physics
\vphantom
\vqty physics
\vu physics
\Vvdash ams

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16.8.24 W

\wedge
\widehat
\widetilde
\wp
\wr

16.8.25 X

\xcancel cancel
\Xi
\xi
\xleftarrow ams, mhchem
\xleftrightarrow mhchem
\xLeftrightharpoons mhchem
\xlongequal extpfeil
\xmapsto extpfeil
\xmat physics
\xmatrix physics
\xrightarrow ams, mhchem
\xRightleftharpoons mhchem
\xrightleftharpoons mhchem
\xtofrom extpfeil
\xtwoheadleftarrow extpfeil
\xtwoheadrightarrow extpfeil

16.8.26 Y

\yen ams

16.8.27 Z

\zeromatrix physics
\zeta
\zmat physics

16.8.28 Environments

LaTeX environments of the form \begin{NAME} ... \end{NAME} are provided where NAME is one of the
following:

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align ams
align* ams
alignat ams
alignat* ams
aligned ams
alignedat ams
array
Bmatrix ams
bmatrix ams
cases ams
CD amsCd
eqnarray
eqnarray* ams
equation
equation*
gather ams
gather* ams
gathered ams
matrix ams
multline ams
multline* ams
pmatrix ams
smallmatrix ams, physics
split ams
subarray ams
Vmatrix ams
vmatrix ams

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 CHAPTER 17

MathML Support

The support for MathML in MathJax involves two functions: the first looks for <math> tags within your document
and marks them for later processing by MathJax, and the second converts the MathML to the internal format used by
MathJax, where one of MathJax’s output processors then displays it in the web page.
In addition, MathJax’s internal format is essentially MathML (with a few additions), implemented as javascript objects
rather than DOM elements. MathJax’s various input processors all convert their original format into this internal
MathML format, and its output processors take this MathML and produce the proper output from it. Because the
internal format is MathML-based, MathJax provides the ability to convert to and from MathML notation.
Although some browsers have native support for rendering MathML, not all do, and so MathJax makes it possible to
view MathML notation in all browsers. Even for those that do support MathML, it may be valuable to use MathJax,
since that will produce consistent output across all browsers, and MathJax implements features and functionality that
is not available in some native MathML implementations.

17.1 MathML in HTML pages

For MathML that is handled via the preprocessor, you should not use named MathML entities, but rather use numeric
entities like &#x221A; or unicode characters embedded in the page itself. The reason is that entities are replaced
by the browser before MathJax runs, and some browsers report errors for unknown entities. For browsers that are
not MathML-aware, that will cause errors to be displayed for the MathML entities. While that might not occur in
the browser you are using to compose your pages, it can happen with other browsers, so you should avoid the named
entities whenever possible. If you must use named entities, you may need to declare them in the DOCTYPE declaration
by hand.
When you use MathML in an HTML document rather than an XHTML one (MathJax will work with both), you should
not use the “self-closing” form for MathML tags with no content, but should use separate open and close tags. That
is, use

<mspace width="thinmathspace"></mspace>

rather than <mspace width="thinmathspace" />. This is because HTML does not have self-closing tags,
and some browsers will get the nesting of tags wrong if you attempt to use them. For example, with <mspace

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width="1em" />, since there is no closing tag, the rest of the mathematics will become the content of the
<mspace> tag; but since <mspace> should have no content, the rest of the mathematics will not be displayed.
This is a common error that should be avoided. Modern browsers that support HTML5 should be able to handle self-
closing tags, but older browsers have problems with them, so if you want your mathematics to be visible to the widest
audience, do not use the self-closing form in HTML documents.

17.2 Supported MathML tags

MathJax supports the MathML3.0 mathematics tags, with some limitations. The MathML support is still under active
development, so some tags are not yet implemented, and some features are not fully developed, but are coming.
The deficiencies include:
• No support for alignment groups in tables.
• Not all attributes are supported for tables. E.g., columnspan and rowspan are not implemented yet.
• Experimental support for the elementary math tags: mstack, mlongdiv, msgroup, msrow, mscarries,
and mscarry (via the mml3 extension, see below).
• Experimental support for bidirectional mathematics (via the mml3 extension, see below).
See the results of the MathML3.0 test suite for details.

17.3 Content MathML

The version 2 content-mathml extension is not yet available in version 3.

17.4 Experimental mml3 extension

The version 2 mml3 extension is not yet available in version 3.

17.5 Semantics and Annotations

Some popular annotation formats like TeX, Maple, or Content MathML are often included in the MathML source via
the semantics element. This is particularly true of MathML that is generated by other software, such as editors or
computational tools.
MathJax provides access to these annotations through the "Show Math As" menu, via the Annotations sub-
menu. See the MathML Annotation Framework and the Contextual Menu Options documentation for details.

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 CHAPTER 18

AsciiMath Support

The support for AsciiMath in MathJax involves two functions: the first looks for mathematics within your web page
(indicated by delimiters like `...`) and marks the mathematics for later processing by MathJax, and the second
is what converts the AsciiMath notation into MathJax’s internal format, where one of MathJax’s output proces-
sors then displays it in the web page. In MathJax version 2, these were separated into distinct components (the
asciimath2jax preprocessor and the AsciiMath input jax), but in version 3, the asciimath2jax functions
have been folded into the AsciiMath input jax.
The AsciiMath input jax actually includes a copy of ASCIIMathML.js itself (see the AsciiMath home page for
details). This means that the results of MathJax’s AsciiMath processing should be the same as using the actual
ASCIIMathML.js package (at least as far as the MathML that it generates is concerned). Thanks go to David
Lippman for writing the initial version of the AsciiMath preprocessor and input jax and for the ongoing improvements
from the AsciiMath community.
The AsciiMath input jax handles only the original ASCIIMathML notation (from ASCIIMathML v1.4.7), not the
extended LaTeXMathML notation added in version 2.0 of ASCIIMathML, though the AsciiMath input jax does expose
the tables that define the symbols that AsciiMath processes, and so it would be possible to extend them to include
additional symbols. In general, it is probably better to use MathJax’s TeX input jax to handle LaTeX notation.
AsciiMath can be configured to look for whatever markers you want to use for your math delimiters. See the AsciiMath
configuration options section for details on how to customize the action of the AsciiMath input jax.

18.1 Loading the AsciiMath Component

The AsciiMath input jax has not yet been fully ported to version 3. Instead, the AsciiMath component uses the version
2 AsciiMath input jax together with some of the legacy version 2 code patched into the version 3 framework. This is
less efficient, and somewhat larger, than a pure version-3 solution would be, and it can complicate the configuration
process. A full version-3 port of AsciiMath is planned for a future release.
Because AsciiMath hasn’t been fully ported to version 3, none of the combined components include it. So in order to
use AsciiMath notation, you will need to configure MathJax to load it yourself by adding input/asciimath to the
load array in the loader block of your MathJax configuration. For example,

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<script>
MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['input/asciimath', 'output/chtml', 'ui/menu']},
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/startup.js">
</script>

would load the AsciiMath input jax, the CommonHTML output jax, and the contextual menu component.

18.2 AsciiMath delimiters

By default, the AsciiMath processor defines the back-tick (`) as the delimiters for mathematics in AsciiMath format. It
does not define $...$ as math delimiters. That is because dollar signs appear too often in non-mathematical settings,
which could cause some text to be treated as mathematics unexpectedly. For example, with single-dollar delimiters,
“. . . the cost is $2.50 for the first one, and $2.00 for each additional one . . . ” would cause the phrase “2.50 for the
first one, and” to be treated as mathematics since it falls between dollar signs. For this reason, if you want to use
single-dollars for AsciiMath notation, you must enable that explicitly in your configuration:

window.MathJax = {
loader: {
load: ['input/asciimath']
},
asciimath: {
delimiters: [['$','$'], ['`','`']]
}
});

Note that the dollar signs are frequently used as a delimiter for mathematics in the TeX format, and you can not enable
the dollar-sign delimiter for both. It is probably best to leave dollar signs for TeX notation.
See the AsciiMath Input Processor Options page, for additional configuration parameters that you can specify for the
AsciiMath input processor.

18.3 AsciiMath in HTML documents

The AsciiMath syntax is described on the official AsciiMath homepage.

Keep in mind that your mathematics is part of an HTML document, so you need to be aware of the special characters
used by HTML as part of its markup. There cannot be HTML tags within the math delimiters (other than <br>,
<wbr>, and HTML comments) as AsciiMath-formatted math does not include HTML tags. Also, since the mathe-
matics is initially given as text in the page, you need to be careful that your mathematics doesn’t look like HTML
tags to the browser, which parses the page before MathJax gets to see it. In particular, that means that you have to be
careful about things like less-than and greater-than signs (< and >), and ampersands (&), which have special meaning
to web browsers. For example,

... when `x<y` we have ...

will cause a problem, because the browser will think <y is the beginning of a tag named y (even though there is no
such tag in HTML). When this happens, the browser will think the tag continues up to the next > in the document
(typically the end of the next actual tag in the HTML file), and you may notice that you are missing part of the text
of the document. In the example above, the “<y” and “we have ...” will not be displayed because the browser

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thinks it is part of the tag starting at <y. This is one indication you can use to spot this problem; it is a common error
and should be avoided.
Usually, it is sufficient simply to put spaces around these symbols to cause the browser to avoid them, so

... when `x < y` we have ...

should work. Alternatively, you can use the HTML entities &lt;, &gt; and &amp; to encode these characters so
that the browser will not interpret them, but MathJax will. E.g.,

... when `x &lt; y` we have ...

Keep in mind that the browser interprets your text before MathJax does.

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 CHAPTER 19

MathJax Output Formats

Currently, MathJax can render math in three ways:

• Using HTML and CSS to lay out the mathematics,
• Using Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to lay out the mathematics, or
• As a serialized MathML string.
The first two are implemented by the CommonHTML and SVG output processors. The third is a consequence of the fact
that MathJax uses MathML as its internal format. While MathJax version 2 included a NativeMML output processor
that produced MathML notation for those browsers that support it, this has been dropped from version 3. See the
MathML Support section for more information on how to get MathML output.
If you are using one of the combined component files, then this will select one of these output processors for you. If
the component file ends in -chtml, then it is the CommonHTML output processor, while if it ends in -svg then the
SVG output processor will be used.
If you are performing your own in-line or file-based configuration, you select which one you want to use by including
either 'output/chtml' or 'output/svg' in the load array of the loader section of your MathJax configu-
ration. For example

window.MathJax = {
loader: {load: ["input/tex", "output/chtml"]}
};

would specify TeX input and CommonHTML output for the mathematics in your document.

Warning: The PreviewHTML, PlainSource, and NativeMML output formats from version 2 are not avail-
able in version 3. These may be available in future releases if there is demand for them.

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19.1 HTML Support

The CommonHTML output processor renders your mathematics using HTML with CSS styling. It produces high-
quality output in all modern browsers, with results that are consistent across browsers and operating systems. This is
MathJax’s primary output mode since MathJax version 2.6. Its major advantage is its quality, consistency, and the fact
that its output is independent of the browser, operating system, and user environment. This means you can pre-process
mathematics on a server, without needing to know the browser, what fonts are available, and so on. (In version 2, both
the HTML-CSS and NativeMML processors produced different output for different browsers and user environments.)
The CommonHTML output uses web-based fonts so that users don’t have to have math fonts installed on their com-
puters, but will use locally installed ones if they are available. It currently only supports MathJax’s default TeX fonts
(see the MathJax Font Support section for more information).
See CommonHTML Output Processor Options for information about the options that control the CommonHTML
output.

19.2 SVG Support

The SVG output processor uses Scalable Vector Graphics to render the mathematics on the page. SVG is supported
in all the major browsers and most mobile devices; note, however, that Internet Explorer prior to IE9 does not support
SVG (MathJax version 3 doesn’t support these in any case), and IE9 only does in “IE9 standards mode”, not its
emulation modes for earlier versions. The SVG output mode is high quality, and displays and prints well in all
browsers. Since it uses SVG data instead of font files, it is not affected by user-based web-font blocking, or other
character placement issues that sometimes occur with the HTML-based output.
One advantage to the SVG output is that it is relatively self-contained (it does not rely heavily on CSS, though it does
use some in certain circumstances), so it can be saved and used as an independent image. One disadvantage of this
mode is that its variable-width tables become fixed size once they are typeset, and don’t rescale if the window size
changes (for example).
In version 2, equation tags and numbers where produced using a fixed width as well, so the equation number would
not change with changes in window size. In version 3, however, equation numbers now are based on the container
size, and move with changes in its size, just as they do with CommonHTML output.
Finally, because mathematical characters in SVG output are produced by SVG paths, not characters in a font, they
can’t be copy and pasted, as the output of the CommonHTML processor can.
See SVG Output Processor Options for information about the options that control the SVG output.

19.3 MathML Support

MathJax uses MathML as the basis for its internal format for mathematical expressions, so MathML support is built
into MathJax at a fundamental level. There is a MathML input jax for converting from MathML elements into the
internal format (javascript objects representing the MathML elements), and there is a mechanism that can convert
the internal format into a serialized MathML string provided by MathJax.startup.toMML() (if you are using
MathJax components).
While MathJax version 2 included a NativeMML output jax for producing MathML output in the web page, because
MathML is not available in the Chrome, Edge, and IE browsers, because the MathML support in Safari and Firefox
don’t include all the features needed by MathJax (e.g., the <mlabeledtr> element needed for labeled equations), and
because the quality of the results in Safari and Firefox are not always comparable to the output from MathJax, the
NativeMML output jax is no longer provided in MathJax version 3.

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You can, however, use MathJax’s MathML serialization features to implement your own native MathML output if you
wish. Here is one example that does so for TeX input to MathML output.

<style>
mjx-container[display="block"] {
display: block;
margin: 1em 0;
}
</style>
<script>
MathJax = {
//
// Load only TeX input and the contextual menu
//
loader: {load: ['input/tex', 'ui/menu']},
//
// When page is ready, render the math in the document
//
startup: {pageReady: () => MathJax.startup.document.render()},
//
// Override the usual typeset render action with one that generates MathML output
//
options: {
renderActions: {
typeset: [150,
//
// The function for rendering a document's math elements
//
(doc) => {
const toMML = MathJax.startup.toMML;
for (math of doc.math) {
math.typesetRoot = document.createElement('mjx-container');
math.typesetRoot.innerHTML = toMML(math.root);
math.display && math.typesetRoot.setAttribute('display', 'block');
}
},
//
// The function for rendering a single math expression
//
(math, doc) => {
math.typesetRoot = document.createElement('mjx-container');
math.typesetRoot.innerHTML = MathJax.startup.toMML(math.root);
math.display && math.typesetRoot.setAttribute('display', 'block');
}
]
}
}
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/startup.js">
</script>

This example uses the startup component to load just the input/tex and contextual menu components, and defines a
new render action that replaces the standard typeset action with one that creates a MathJax container element and
stores it in math.typesetRoot, then converts the internal format to a MathML string (via MathJax.startup.
toMML()) and has the browser parse that into DOM element (via innerHTML). A later render action will move the
container and its MathML contents into the DOM at the proper location. For math that is in display style, the container

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is marked with an attribute so that CSS can be used to make the container be a block-level element with some top and
bottom margin.

Note: MathJax’s version 2 NativeMML output processor worked around various limitations of Firefox/Gecko and
Safari/WebKit (e.g., to provide support for equation labels), but this approach does not, as it just uses the generic
MathML.

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 CHAPTER 20

Automatic Line Breaking

Automatic line breaking has not yet been implemented in MathJax version 3, but is high on our list for inclusion in a
future release.

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128 Chapter 20. Automatic Line Breaking

 CHAPTER 21

MathJax Font Support

MathJax version 3 currently supports only one font, the MathJax TeX font. Version 2 provides the following fonts:
• MathJax TeX (default)
• STIX General
• Asana Math
• Neo Euler
• Gyre Pagella
• Gyre Termes
• Latin Modern
MathJax contains customized webfont versions of these fonts. In particular, these customized versions are split over
several files to minimize the page load.
MathJax 3 will support these fonts in a future version.

21.1 Use of Other Fonts

In version 2 of MathJax, it was difficult to adjust the fonts in use (once loaded), or to replace individual or collections
of characters being used. For example, switching the variables and function names to use a sans-serif font rather than
the standard serifed font is quite difficult in version 2. The structure of the font data in version 3 has been completely
redesigned to help make such changes easier to make.
Since browsers do not provide APIs to access font metrics, MathJax has to ship with the necessary font data; this font
data is generated during development and cannot be determined easily on the fly. The tools for creating the data needed
by MathJax have not yet been created for version 3 (the data for the MatahJax TeX font was converted from the version
2 format by hand). These tools are high on the list for inclusion in the next version of MathJax, which should provide
the additional fonts missing from the initial release of version 3. At that point, the details of how to mix-and-match
font characters, and how to create the data files for your own fonts for use in MathJax, will be provided.

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21.2 Character fallbacks

No font contains a suitable glyph for every character specified in the Unicode standard. When MathJax encounters a
character that isn’t in the font that it is using, it will fall back to other fonts in a variety of ways.
First, MathJax enhances Unicode coverage of its default TeX fonts, e.g., combining two double integrals U+222C
when a quadruple integral U+2A0C is used. However, this cannot create every character specified in Unicode. Next,
MathJax will run through a fallback chain within the configured fonts (e.g., upright Greek will be substituted with
italic Greek).
Finally, when all else fails, MathJax will ask the browser to provide the glyph from a system font. Since in that final
case, MathJax will not have the necessary data on the glyph’s bounding box, MathJax will guess these metrics. When
run in a browser, MathJax will be able to determine the character’s width, but not its height and depth, so it will use
default values these metrics. Measuring the width can negatively affect the rendering speed, and guessing the height
and depth can reduce the quality of the resulting output. When used on a server or in a command-line application,
MathJax won’t even be able to determine the width, and that has an even more serous consequences for the layout, in
general. Thus it is best to use only the characters that are in the MathJax fonts when using server-side rendering.

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 CHAPTER 22

Browser Compatibility

Extensive browser support is an important goal for MathJax; at the same time, MathJax does require a certain minimum
level of browser functionality. While MathJax version 2 went to great lengths to remain compatible with early versions
of most browsers (even back to IE6), MathJax version 3 relies on more modern browser features, and so older browsers
are no longer supported.
The CommonHTML and SVG output supports all modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge), and most mobile
browsers. Include the polyfill library in order to support earlier browser versions (see their browser support page for
details). In particular, to allow MathJax version 3 to work with IE11, include the line

<script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6"></script>

before the script that loads MathJax.

Please file issues on GitHub if you notice inaccuracies or problems. It may help to add a screenshot; we suggest
services such as browsershots.org, saucelabs.com, or browserstack.com for obtaining them.

22.1 Viewport meta tag

The viewport meta tag provides the browser with instructions regarding viewports and zooming. This way, web
developers can control how a webpage is displayed on a mobile device.
Incorrect or missing viewport information can confuse MathJax’s layout process, leading to very small font sizes. We
recommend that you use standard values such as the following:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

22.2 Internet Explorer Emulation modes

Internet Explorer provides so-called emulation modes for backward compatibility to its legacy versions. These emu-
lation modes have been deprecated since Internet Explorer 11, cf. Microsoft documentation.

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MathJax is fastest when in the standards mode of each IE version, so it is best to force the highest mode possible. That
can be accomplished by adding

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">

at the top of the <head> section of your HTML documents.

Note: This line must come at the beginning of the <head>, before any stylesheets, scripts, or other content are
loaded.

Note that versions of IE prior to 11 are no longer supported in MathJax version 3.

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 CHAPTER 23

Configuring MathJax

The various components of MathJax, including its input and output processors, its extensions, and the MathJax core,
all can be configured though a MathJax global object that specifies the configuration you want to use. The MathJax
object consists of sub-objects that configure the individual components of MathJax. For example, the input/tex com-
ponent is configured through a tex block within the MathJax object, while the startup component is configured
through the startup block.
These blocks are javascript objects that includes name: value pairs giving the names of parameters and their
values, with pairs separated by commas. Be careful not to include a comma after the last value, however, as some
browsers will fail to process the configuration if you do.
Some blocks may contain further sub-blocks. For example, the tex block can have a macros sub-block that pre-
defines macros, and a tagFormat block (when the tagFormat component is used) to define how equation tags are
displayed and handled.
For example,
window.MathJax = {
loader: {
load: ['[tex]/tagFormat']
},
startup: {
pageReady: () => {
alert('Running MathJax')l;
return MathJax.startup.defaultPageReady();
}
},
tex: {
packages: {'[+]': ['tagFormat']},
tagSide: 'left',
macros: {
RR: '{\\bf R}',
bold: ['{\\bf #1}',1]
},
tagFormat: {
tag: (n) => '[' + n + ']'
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

}
}
};

is a configuration that asks for the tagFormat extension to be loaded, sets up the startup component to have a function
that it runs when the page (and MathJax) are ready (the function issues an alert and then does the usual pageReady()
function, which typesets the page), configures the TeX input component to use the tagFormat extension, asks for
displayed equations to be typeset to the left (rather than centered), defines two macros, and finally set the tagging so
that it uses square brackets rather than parentheses for equation numbers and tags.
Note the special notation used with the packages option above. The packages property is an array of extension
names, but the configuration uses a special object to add to that array rather than replace it. If the option you are
setting is an array, and you provide an object that has a single properly whose name is '[+]' and whose value is an
array, then that array will be appended to the default value for the option you are setting. So in the example above,
the 'tagFormat' string is added to the default packages array (without your needing to know what that default
value is).
Similarly, if you use an object with a single property whose name is '[-]' and whose value is an array, the elements
in that array are removed from the default value of the option you are setting. For example,
packages: {'[-]': ['autoload', 'require']}

would remove the autoload and require packages from the default packages array.
Finally, you can combine '[+]' and '[-]' in one object to do both actions. E.g.,
packages: {'[+]': ['enclose'], '[-]': ['autoload', 'require']}

would remove the autoload and require packages from the default packages array, and add enclose to the result.

In the links below, the various options are first listed with their default values as a complete configuration block, and
then each option is explained further below that.

23.1 Input Processor Options

23.1.1 TeX Input Processor Options

The options below control the operation of the TeX input processor that is run when you include 'input/tex',
'input/tex-full', or 'input/tex-base' in the load array of the loader block of your MathJax config-
uration, or if you load a combined component that includes the TeX input jax. They are listed with their default values.
To set any of these options, include a tex section in your MathJax global object.

The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
tex: {
packages: ['base'], // extensions to use
inlineMath: [ // start/end delimiter pairs for in-line math
['\\(', '\\)']
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

],
displayMath: [ // start/end delimiter pairs for display math
['$$', '$$'],
['\\[', '\\]']
],
processEscapes: true, // use \$ to produce a literal dollar sign
processEnvironments: true, // process \begin{xxx}...\end{xxx} outside math mode
processRefs: true, // process \ref{...} outside of math mode
digits: /^(?:[0-9]+(?:\{,\}[0-9]{3})*(?:\.[0-9]*)?|\.[0-9]+)/,
// pattern for recognizing numbers
tags: 'none', // or 'ams' or 'all'
tagSide: 'right', // side for \tag macros
tagIndent: '0.8em', // amount to indent tags
useLabelIds: true, // use label name rather than tag for ids
multlineWidth: '85%', // width of multline environment
maxMacros: 1000, // maximum number of macro substitutions per expression
maxBuffer: 5 * 1024, // maximum size for the internal TeX string (5K)
baseURL: // URL for use with links to tags (when there is a
˓→<base> tag in effect)

(document.getElementsByTagName('base').length === 0) ?
'' : String(document.location).replace(/#.*$/, ''))
}
};

Note that some extensions make additional options available. See the TeX Extension Options section below for details.
Note also that the default for processEscapes has changed from false in version 2 to true in version 3.

Option Descriptions

packages: ['base']
This array lists the names of the packages that should be initialized by the TeX input processor. The input/tex
and input/tex-full components automatically add to this list the packages that they load. If you explicitly load
addition tex extensions, you should add them to this list. For example:
MathJax = {
loader: {load: ['[tex]/enclose']},
tex: {
packages: {'[+]': ['enclose']}
}
};

inlineMath: [['\(','\)']]
This is an array of pairs of strings that are to be used as in-line math delimiters. The first in each pair is the
initial delimiter and the second is the terminal delimiter. You can have as many pairs as you want. For example,
inlineMath: [ ['$','$'], ['\\(','\\)'] ]

would cause MathJax to look for $...$ and \(...\) as delimiters for in-line mathematics. (Note that the
single dollar signs are not enabled by default because they are used too frequently in normal text, so if you want
to use them for math delimiters, you must specify them explicitly.)
Note that the delimiters can’t look like HTML tags (i.e., can’t include the less-than sign), as these would be
turned into tags by the browser before MathJax has the chance to run. You can only include text, not tags, as
your math delimiters.

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displayMath: [ ['$$','$$'], ['\[','\]'] ]

This is an array of pairs of strings that are to be used as delimiters for displayed equations. The first in each pair
is the initial delimiter and the second is the terminal delimiter. You can have as many pairs as you want.
Note that the delimiters can’t look like HTML tags (i.e., can’t include the less-than sign), as these would be
turned into tags by the browser before MathJax has the chance to run. You can only include text, not tags, as
your math delimiters.
processEscapes: false
When set to true, you may use \$ to represent a literal dollar sign, rather than using it as a math delimiter.
When false, \$ will not be altered, and its dollar sign may be considered part of a math delimiter. Typically
this is set to true if you enable the $ ... $ in-line delimiters, so you can type \$ and MathJax will convert
it to a regular dollar sign in the rendered document.
processRefs: true
When set to true, MathJax will process \ref{...} outside of math mode.
processEnvironments: true
When true, tex2jax looks not only for the in-line and display math delimiters, but also for LaTeX environ-
ments (\begin{something}...\end{something}) and marks them for processing by MathJax. When
false, LaTeX environments will not be processed outside of math mode.
digits: /^(?:[0-9]+(?:{,}[0-9]{3})*(?:.[0-9]*)?|.[0-9]+)/
This gives a regular expression that is used to identify numbers during the parsing of your TeX expressions. By
default, the decimal point is . and you can use {,} between every three digits before that. If you want to use
{,} as the decimal indicator, use

MathJax = {
tex: {
digits: /^(?:[0-9]+(?:\{,\}[0-9]*)?|\{,\}[0-9]+)/
}
};

tags: 'none'
This controls whether equations are numbered and how. By default it is set to 'none' to be compatible
with earlier versions of MathJax where auto-numbering was not performed (so pages will not change their
appearance). You can change this to 'ams' for equations numbered as the AMSmath package would do, or
'all' to get an equation number for every displayed equation.
tagSide: 'right'
This specifies the side on which \tag{} macros will place the tags, and on which automatic equation numbers
will appear. Set it to 'left' to place the tags on the left-hand side.
tagIndent: "0.8em"
This is the amount of indentation (from the right or left) for the tags produced by the \tag{} macro or by
automatic equation numbers.
useLabelIds: true
This controls whether element IDs for tags use the \label name or the equation number. When true, use the
label, when false, use the equation number.
multlineWidth: "85%"
The width to use for the multline environment that is part of the ams extension. This width gives room for tags
at either side of the equation, but if you are displaying mathematics in a small area or a thin column of text, you
might need to change the value to leave sufficient margin for tags.
maxMacros: 10000
Because a definition of the form \def\x{\x} \x would cause MathJax to loop infinitely, the maxMacros
constant will limit the number of macro substitutions allowed in any expression processed by MathJax.

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maxBuffer: 5 * 1024
Because a definition of the form \def\x{\x aaa} \x would loop infinitely, and at the same time stack up
lots of a’s in MathJax’s equation buffer, the maxBuffer constant is used to limit the size of the string being
processed by MathJax. It is set to 5KB, which should be sufficient for any reasonable equation.
baseURL: (document.getElementsByTagName('base').length === 0) ?
'' : String(document.location).replace(/#.*$/, ''))
This is the base URL to use when creating links to tagged equations (via \ref{} or \eqref{}) when there
is a <base> element in the document that would affect those links. You can set this value by hand if MathJax
doesn’t produce the correct link.
The remaining options are described in the Options Common to All Input Processors section.

Developer Options

In addition to the options listed above, low-level options intended for developers include the following:
FindTeX: null
The FindTeX object instance that will override the default one. This allows you to create a subclass of
FindTeX and pass that to the TeX input jax. A null value means use the default FindTeX class and make a
new instance of that.

TeX Extension Options

Several of the TeX extensions make additional options available in the tex block of your MathJax configuration.
These are described below. Note that the input/tex component, and the combined components that load the TeX input
jax, include a number of these extensions automatically, so some these options will be available by default.

ConfigMacros Options

The configMacros extension adds a macros option to the tex block that lets you pre-define macros.
macros: {}
This lists macros to define before the TeX input processor begins. These are name: value pairs where the name
gives the name of the TeX macro to be defined, and value gives the replacement text for the macro. The value
can be a simple replacement string, or an array of the form [value, n], where value is the replacement text and
n is the number of parameters for the macro. The array can have a third entry: either a string that is the default
value to give for an optional (bracketed) parameter when the macro is used, or an array consisting of template
strings that are used to separate the various parameters. The first template must precede the first parameter, the
second must precede the second, and so on until the final which must end the last parameter to the macro. See
the examples below.
Note that since the value is a javascript string, backslashes in the replacement text must be doubled to prevent
them from acting as javascript escape characters.
For example,
macros: {
RR: '{\\bf R}', // a simple string replacement
bold: ['\\boldsymbol{#1}',1] , // this macro has one parameter
ddx: ['\\frac{d#2}{d#1}', 2, 'x'], // this macro has an optional parameter that
˓→defaults to 'x'

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abc: ['(#1)', 1, [null, '\\cba']] // equivalent to \def\abc#1\cba{(#1)}
}

would ask the TeX processor to define four new macros: \RR, which produces a bold-face “R”, and \bold{.
..}, which takes one parameter and sets it in the bold-face font, \ddx, which has an optional (bracketed)
parameter that defaults to x, so that \ddx{y} produces \frac{dy}{dx} while \ddx[t]{y} produces
\frac{dy}{dt}, and \abc that is equivalent to \def\abc#1\cba{(#1)}.

Require Options

The require extension defines the (non-standard) \require{} macro for loading TeX extensions. Adding it to the
packages array defines a require sub-block of the tex configuration block with the following values:

MathJax = {
tex: {
require: {
allow: {
base: false,
'all-packages': false
},
defaultAllow: true
}
};

allow: {...}
This sub-object indicates which extensions can be loaded by \require. The keys are the package names, and
the value is true to allow the extension to be loaded, and false to disallow it. If an extension is not in the
list, the default value is given by defaultAllow, described below.
defaultAllow: true
This is the value used for any extensions that are requested, but are not in the allow object described above. If
set to true, any extension not listed in allow will be allowed; if false, only the ones listed in allow (with
value true) will be allowed.

Autoload Option

The autoload extension creates macros that cause the packages that define them to be loaded automatically when they
are first used. Adding it to the packages array defines an autoload sub-block to the tex configuration block.
This block contains key: value pairs where the key is a TeX package name, and the value is an array of macros that
cause that package to be loaded, or an array consisting of two arrays, the first giving names of macros and the second
names of environments; the first time any of them are used, the extension will be loaded automatically.
The default autoload definitions are the following:

MathJax = {
tex: {
autoload: expandable({
action: ['toggle', 'mathtip', 'texttip'],
amsCd: [[], ['CD']],
bbox: ['bbox'],
boldsymbol: ['boldsymbol'],
braket: ['bra', 'ket', 'braket', 'set', 'Bra', 'Ket', 'Braket', 'Set', 'ketbra',
˓→ 'Ketbra'],

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cancel: ['cancel', 'bcancel', 'xcancel', 'cancelto'],
color: ['color', 'definecolor', 'textcolor', 'colorbox', 'fcolorbox'],
enclose: ['enclose'],
extpfeil: ['xtwoheadrightarrow', 'xtwoheadleftarrow', 'xmapsto',
'xlongequal', 'xtofrom', 'Newextarrow'],
html: ['href', 'class', 'style', 'cssId'],
mhchem: ['ce', 'pu'],
newcommand: ['newcommand', 'renewcommand', 'newenvironment', 'renewenvironment',
˓→ 'def', 'let'],

unicode: ['unicode'],
verb: ['verb']
}
}
};

To prevent an extension from autoloading, set its value to an empty array. E.g., to not autoload the color extension,
use

MathJax = {
tex: {
autoload: expandable({
color: []
}
}
};

If you define your own extensions, and they have a prefix other than [tex], then include that in the extension name.
For instance,

MathJax = {
tex: {
autoload: expandable({
'[extensions]/myExtension' : ['myMacro', 'myOtherMacro']
}
}
};

See the Loader Options section for details about how to define your own prefixes, like the [extensions] prefix
used here.

TagFormat Options

The tagFormat extension allows you to control the display and linking of equation tags and numbers. Adding this to
the packages array adds a tagFormat sub-object to the tex configuration block with the following values:

tagFormat: {
number: (n) => n.toString(),
tag: (tag) => '(' + tag + ')',
id: (id) => 'mjx-eqn-' + id.replace(/\s/g, '_'),
url: (id, base) => base + '#' + encodeURIComponent(id),
}

number: function (n) {return n.toString()}

A function that tells MathJax what tag to use for equation number n. This could be used to have the equations
labeled by a sequence of symbols rather than numbers, or to use section and subsection numbers instead.

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tag: function (n) {return '(' + n + ')'}

A function that tells MathJax how to format an equation number for displaying as a tag for an equation. This is
what appears in the margin of a tagged or numbered equation.
id: function (n) {return 'mjx-eqn-' + n.replace(/\s/g, '_')}
A function that tells MathJax what ID to use as an anchor for the equation (so that it can be used in URL
references).
url: function (id, base) {return base + '#' + encodeURIComponent(id)}
A function that takes an equation ID and base URL and returns the URL to link to it. The base value is taken
from the baseURL value, so that links can be make within a page even if it has a <base> element that sets the
base URL for the page to a different location.

Color Options

The color extension defines the LaTeX-compatible \color macro. Adding it to the packages array defines a
color sub-block of the tex configuration block with the following values:

MathJax = {
tex: {
color: {
padding: '5px',
borderWidth: '2px'
}
}
};

padding: '5px'
This gives the padding to use for color boxes with background colors.
borderWidth: '2px'
This gives the border width to use with framed color boxes produced by \fcolorbox.

AmsCD Options

The amsCd extension defines the CD environment for commutative diagrams. Adding it to the packages array
defines an amsCd sub-block of the tex configuration block with the following values:

MathJax = {
tex: {
amsCd: {
colspace: '5pt',
rowspace: '5pt',
harrowsize: '2.75em',
varrowsize: '1.75em',
hideHorizontalLabels: false
}
}
};

colspace: '5pt'
This gives the amount of space to use between columns in the commutative diagram.
rowspace: '5pt'
This gives the amount of space to use between rows in the commutative diagram.

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harrowsize: '2.75em'
This gives the minimum size for horizontal arrows in the commutative diagram.
varrowsize: '1.75em'
This gives the minimum size for vertical arrows in the commutative diagram.
hideHorizontalLabels: false
This determines whether horizontal arrows with labels above or below will use \smash in order to hide the
height of the labels. (Labels above or below horizontal arrows can cause excess space between rows, so setting
this to true can improve the look of the diagram.)

23.1.2 MathML Input Processor Options

The options below control the operation of the MathML input processor that is run when you include 'input/
mathml' in the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, or if you load a combined compo-
nent that includes the MathML input jax. They are listed with their default values. To set any of these options, include
an mml section in your MathJax global object.

The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
mml: {
parseAs: 'html', // or 'xml'
forceReparse: false, // true to serialize and re-parse all MathML
parseError: function (node) { // function to process parsing errors
this.error(this.adaptor.textContent(node).replace(/\n.*/g, ''));
}
}
};

Option Descriptions

parseAs: 'html'
Specifies how MathML strings should be parsed: as XML or as HTML. When set to 'xml', the browser’s
XML parser is used, which is more strict about format (e.g., matching end tags) than the HTML parser, which
is the default. In node application (where the liteDOM is used), these both use the same parser, which is not
very strict.
forceReparse: false
Specifies whether MathJax will serialize and re-parse MathML found in the document. This can be useful if you
want to do XML parsing of the MathML from an HTML document.
parseError: (node) => {...}
Specifies a function to be called when there is a parsing error in the MathML (usually only happens with XML
parsing). The node is a DOM node containing the error text. Your function can process that in any way it
sees fit. The default is to call the MathML input processor’s error function with the text of the error (which will
create an merror node with the error message). Note that this function runs with this being the MathML
input processor object.

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Developer Options

In addition to the options listed above, low-level options intended for developers include the following:
FindMathML: null
The FindMathML object instance that will override the default one. This allows you to create a subclass of
FindMathML and pass that to the MathML input jax. A null value means use the default FindMathML
class and make a new instance of that.
MathMLCompile: null
The MathMLCompile object instance that will override the default one. This allows you to create a sub-
class of MathMLCompile and pass that to the MathML input jax. A null value means use the default
MathMLCompile class and make a new instance of that.

23.1.3 AsciiMath Input Processor Options

The options below control the operation of the AsciiMath input processor that is run when you include 'input/
asciimath' in the in the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, or if you load a combined
component that includes the AsciiMath input jax (none currently do, since the AsciiMath input has not been fully
ported to version 3). They are listed with their default values. To set any of these options, include an asciimath
section in your MathJax global object.

The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
asciimath: {
fixphi: true, // true for TeX mapping, false for unicode mapping
displaystyle: true, // true for displaystyle typesetting, false for in-line
decimalsign: '.' // character to use for decimal separator
}
};

Option Descriptions

fixphi: true
Determines whether MathJax will switch the Unicode values for phi and varphi. If set to true MathJax
will use the TeX mapping, otherwise the Unicode mapping.
displaystyle: true
Determines whether operators like summation symbols will have their limits above and below the operators
(true) or to their right (false). The former is how they would appear in displayed equations that are shown on
their own lines, while the latter is better suited to in-line equations so that they don’t interfere with the line
spacing so much.
decimalsign: "."
This is the character to be used for decimal points in numbers. If you change this to ',', then you need to be
careful about entering points or intervals. E.g., use (1, 2) rather than (1,2) in that case.
The remaining options are described in the Options Common to All Input Processors section.

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Developer Options

In addition to the options listed above, low-level options intended for developers include the following:
FindAsciiMath: null
The FindAsciiMath object instance that will override the default one. This allows you to create a sub-
class of FindAsciiMath and pass that to the AsciiMath input jax. A null value means use the default
FindAsciiMath class and make a new instance of that.

23.1.4 Options Common to All Input Processors

There are no options that are common to all input jax, but a number of the Document Options affect what portions
of the document will be processed by the input jax that scan the page for delimiters (i.e., TeX and AsciiMath). In
particular, the options that correspond to the version-2 options skipTags, includeTags, and similar options for
the various v2 pre-processors are now document-level options.

23.2 Output Processor Options

There are a number of configuration options that are common to all the output processors. These are described
following the links below, which give the options that are specific to the particular output jax.

23.2.1 CommonHTML Output Processor Options

The options below control the operation of the CommonHTML output processor that is run when you include
'output/chtml' in the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, or if you load a com-
bined component that includes the CommonHTML output jax. They are listed with their default values. To set any of
these options, include a chtml section in your MathJax global object.

The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
chtml: {
scale: 1, // global scaling factor for all expressions
minScale: .5, // smallest scaling factor to use
matchFontHeight: true, // true to match ex-height of surrounding font
mtextInheritFont: false, // true to make mtext elements use surrounding font
merrorInheritFont: true, // true to make merror text use surrounding font
mathmlSpacing: false, // true for MathML spacing rules, false for TeX
˓→rules

skipAttributes: {}, // RFDa and other attributes NOT to copy to the

˓→output

exFactor: .5, // default size of ex in em units

displayAlign: 'center', // default for indentalign when set to 'auto'
displayIndent: '0', // default for indentshift when set to 'auto'
fontURL: '[mathjax]/components/output/chtml/fonts/woff-v2', // The URL where
˓→the fonts are found

adaptiveCSS: true // true means only produce CSS that is used in the
˓→processed equations

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}
};

Option Descriptions

fontURL: '[mathjax]/components/output/chtml/fonts/woff-v2'
This is the URL to the location where the MathJax fonts are stored. In the default, [mathjax] is replaced by
the location from which you have loaded MathJax. You should include a complete URL to the location of the
fonts you want to use.
adaptiveCSS: true
This setting controls how the CommonHTML output jax handles the CSS styles that it generates. When true,
this means that only the CSS needed for the math that has been processed on the page so far is generated. When
false, the CSS needed for all elements and all characters in the MathJax font are generated. This is an extremely
large amount of CSS, and that can have an effect on the performance of your page, so it is best to leave this as
true. You can reset the information about what CSS is needed by using the command

MathJax.startup.document.output.clearCache();

to clear the font cache.

The remaining options are described in the Options Common to All Output Processors section.

23.2.2 SVG Output Processor Options

The options below control the operation of the SVG output processor that is run when you include 'output/svg'
in the load array of the loader block of your MathJax configuration, or if you load a combined component that
includes the CommonHTML output jax. They are listed with their default values. To set any of these options, include
an svg section in your MathJax global object.

The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
svg: {
scale: 1, // global scaling factor for all expressions
minScale: .5, // smallest scaling factor to use
mtextInheritFont: false, // true to make mtext elements use surrounding font
merrorInheritFont: true, // true to make merror text use surrounding font
mathmlSpacing: false, // true for MathML spacing rules, false for TeX
˓→rules

skipAttributes: {}, // RFDa and other attributes NOT to copy to the

˓→output

exFactor: .5, // default size of ex in em units

displayAlign: 'center', // default for indentalign when set to 'auto'
displayIndent: '0', // default for indentshift when set to 'auto'
fontCache: 'local', // or 'global' or 'none'
localID: null, // ID to use for local font cache (for single
˓→equation processing)

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internalSpeechTitles: true, // insert <title> tags with speech content
titleID: 0 // initial id number to use for aria-labeledby
˓→titles

}
};

Option Descriptions

fontCache: 'local'
This setting determines how the SVG output jax manages characters that appear multiple times in an equation
or on a page. The SVG processor uses SVG paths to display the characters in your math expressions, and when
a character is used more than once, it is possible to reuse the same path description; this can save space in the
SVG image, as the paths can be quite complex. When set to 'local', MathJax will cache font paths on an
express-by-expression (each expression has its own cache within the SVG image itself), which makes the SVG
self-contained, but still allows for some savings if characters are repeated. When set to 'global', a single
cache is used for all paths on the page; this gives the most savings, but makes the images dependent on other
elements of the page. When set to 'none', no caching is done and explicit paths are used for every character
in the expression.
internalSpeechTitles: true
This tells the SVG output jax whether to put speech text into <title> elements within the SVG (when set
to 'true'), or to use an aria-label attribute instead. Neither of these control whether speech strings are
generated (that is handled by the Semantic-Enrich Extension Options settings); this setting only tells what to do
with a speech string when it has been generated or included as an attribute on the root MathML element.
The remaining options are described in the Options Common to All Output Processors section.

Developer Options

In addition to the options listed above, low-level options intended for developers include the following:
localID: null
This gives the ID prefix to use for the paths stored in a local font cache when fontCache is set to 'local'.
This is useful if you need to process multiple equations by hand and want to generate unique ids for each
equation, even if MathJax is restarted between equations. If set to null, no prefix is used.
titleID: 0
This gives the initial number used to make unique <title> ids when internalSpeechTitles is true.
This is useful if you need to process multiple equations by hand and want to generate unique ids for each
equation, even if MathJax is restarted between equations.

23.2.3 Options Common to All Output Processors

The following options are common to all the output processors listed above. They are given here with their default
values, using the chtml block as an example.

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MathJax = {
chtml: {
scale: 1, // global scaling factor for all expressions
minScale: .5, // smallest scaling factor to use
matchFontHeight: true, // true to match ex-height of surrounding font
mtextInheritFont: false, // true to make mtext elements use surrounding font
merrorInheritFont: true, // true to make merror text use surrounding font
mathmlSpacing: false, // true for MathML spacing rules, false for TeX
˓→rules

skipAttributes: {}, // RFDa and other attributes NOT to copy to the

˓→output

exFactor: .5, // default size of ex in em units

displayAlign: 'center', // default for indentalign when set to 'auto'
displayIndent: '0' // default for indentshift when set to 'auto'
}
};

23.2.4 Option Descriptions

scale: 1
The scaling factor for math compaired to the surrounding text. The CommonHTML output processor tries to
match the ex-size of the mathematics with that of the text where it is placed, but you may want to adjust the
results using this scaling factor. The user can also adjust this value using the contextual menu item associated
with the typeset mathematics.
minScale: .5
This gives a minimum scale factor for the scaling used by MathJax to match the equation to the surrounding
text. This will prevent MathJax from making the mathematics too small.
matchFontHeight: true
This setting controls whether MathJax will scale the mathematics so that the ex-height of the math fonts matches
the ex-height of the surrounding fonts. This makes the math match the surroundings better, but if the surround-
ing font doesn’t have its ex-height set properly (and not all fonts do), it can cause the math to not match the
surrounding text. While this will make the lower-case letters match the surrounding fonts, the upper case letters
may not match (that would require the font height and ex-height to have the same ratio in the surrounding text
as in the math fonts, which is unlikely).
mtextInheritFont: false
This setting controls whether <mtext> elements will be typeset using the math fonts or the font of the sur-
rounding text. When false, the math fonts will be used, as they are for other token elements; when true,
the font will be inherited from the surrounding text, when possible, depending on the mathvariant for the
element (some math variants, such as fraktur can’t be inherited from the surroundings).
merrorInheritFont: false
This setting controls whether the text for <merror> elements will be typeset using the math fonts or the font
of the surrounding text. When false, the math fonts will be used, as they are for other token elements; when
true, the font will be inherited from the surrounding text, when possible, depending on the mathvariant
for the element (some math variants, such as fraktur can’t be inherited from the surroundings).
mathmlSpacing: false
This specifies whether to use TeX spacing or MathML spacing when typesetting the math. When true,
MathML spacing rules are used; when false, the TeX rules are used.

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skipAttributes: {}
This object gives a list of non-standard attributes (e.g., RFDa attributes) that will not be transferred from
MathML element to their corresponding DOM elements in the typeset output. For example, with

skipAttributes: {
data-my-attr: true
}

a MathML element like <mi data-my-attr="some data">x</mi> will not have the
data-my-attr attribute on the <mjx-mi> element created by the CommonHTML output processor
to represent the <mi> element (normally, any non-standard attributes are retained in the output).
exFactor: .5
This is the size of an ex in comparison to 1 em that is to be used when the ex-size can’t be determined (e.g.,
when running in a Node application, where the size of DOM elements can’t be determined).
displayAlign: 'center'
This determines how displayed equations will be aligned (left, center, or right). The default is 'center'.
displayIndent: 0
This gives the amount of indentation that should be used for displayed equations. The default is 0. A value of
'1em', for example, would introduce an extra 1 em of space from whichever margin the equation is aligned to,
or an offset from the center position if the expression is centered. Note that negative values are allowed.

23.2.5 Developer Options

In addition to the options listed above, low-level options intended for developers include the following:
wrapperFactory: null
The WrapperFactory object instance to use for creating wrappers for the internal MathML objects. This
allows you to create a subclass of WrapperFactory and pass that to the output jax. A null value means use
the default WrapperFactory class and make a new instance of that.
font: null
The FontData object instance to use for creating wrappers for the internal MathML objects. This allows
you to create a subclass of FontData and pass that to the output jax. A null value means use the default
FontData class and make a new instance of that.
cssStyles: null
The CssStyles object instance to use for creating wrappers for the internal MathML objects. This allows
you to create a subclass of CssStyles and pass that to the output jax. A null value means use the default
CssStyles class and make a new instance of that.

23.3 Document Options

The options below control the operation of the MathDocument object created by MathJax to process the mathematics
in your web page. They are listed with their default values. To set any of these options, include an options section
in your MathJax global object.

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23.3.1 The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
options: {
skipHtmlTags: [ // HTML tags that won't be searched for math
'script', 'noscript', 'style', 'textarea', 'pre',
'code', 'annotation', 'annotation-xml'
],
includeHtmlTags: { // HTML tags that can appear within math
br: '\n', wbr: '', '#comment': ''
},
ignoreHtmlClass: 'tex2jax_ignore', // class that marks tags not to search
processHtmlClass: 'tex2jax_process', // class that marks tags that should be
˓→searched

compileError: function (doc, math, err) {doc.compileError(math, err)},

typesetError: function (doc, math, err) {doc.typesetError(math, err)},
renderActions: {...}
}
};

23.3.2 Option Descriptions

skipHtmlTags: ['script', 'noscript', 'style', 'textarea',

'pre', 'code', 'annotation', 'annotation-xml']
This array lists the names of the tags whose contents should not be processed by MathJaX (other than to look
for ignore/process classes as listed below). You can add to (or remove from) this list to prevent MathJax from
processing mathematics in specific contexts. E.g.,

skipHtmlTags: {'[-]': ['code', 'pre'], '[+]': ['li']}

would remove 'code' and 'pre' tags from the list, while adding 'li' tags to the list.
includeHtmlTags: {br: 'n', wbr: '', '#comment': ''}
This object specifies what tags can appear within a math expression, and what text to replace them by within the
math. The default is to allow <br>, which becomes a newline, and <wbr> and HTML comments, which are
removed entirely.
ignoreHtmlClass: 'mathjax_ignore'
This is the class name used to mark elements whose contents should not be processed by MathJax (other than
to look for the processHtmlClass pattern below). Note that this is a regular expression, and so you need
to be sure to quote any regexp special characters. The pattern is inserted into one that requires your pattern to
match a complete word, so setting ignoreHtmlClass: 'class2' would cause it to match an element
with class='class1 class2 class3' but not class='myclass2'. Note that you can assign sev-
eral classes by separating them by the vertical line character (|). For instance, with ignoreHtmlClass:
'class1|class2' any element assigned a class of either class1 or class2 will be skipped. This could
also be specified by ignoreHtmlClass: 'class[12]', which matches class followed by either a 1
or a 2.
processHtmlClass: 'mathjax_process'
This is the class name used to mark elements whose contents should be processed by MathJax. This is used
to restart processing within tags that have been marked as ignored via the ignoreHtmlClass or to cause
a tag that appears in the skipHtmlTags list to be processed rather than skipped. Note that this is a regular
expression, and so you need to be sure to quote any regexp special characters. The pattern is inserted into one
that requires your pattern to match a complete word, so setting processHtmlClass: 'class2' would

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cause it to match an element with class='class1 class2 class3' but not class='myclass2'.
Note that you can assign several classes by separating them by the vertical line character (|). For instance, with
processHtmlClass: 'class1|class2' any element assigned a class of either class1 or class2
will have its contents processed. This could also be specified by processHtmlClass: 'class[12]',
which matches class followed by either a 1 or a 2.
compileError: function (doc, math, err) {doc.compileError(math, err)}
This is the function called whenever there is an uncaught error while an input jax is running (i.e., during the docu-
ment’s compile() call). The arguments are the MathDocument in which the error occurred, the MathItem
for the expression where it occurred, and the Error object for the uncaught error. The default action is to call
the document’s default compileError() function, which sets math.root to a math element containing an
error message (i.e., <math><merror><mtext>Math input error<mtext></merror></math>).
You can replace this with your own function for trapping run-time errors in the input processors.
typesetError: function (doc, math, err) {doc.typesetError(math, err)}
This is the function called whenever there is an uncaught error while an output jax is running (i.e., during
the document’s typeset() call). The arguments are the MathDocument in which the error occurred, the
MathItem for the expression where it occurred, and the Error object for the uncaught error. The default
action is to call the document’s default typesetError() function, which sets math.typesetRoot to a
<span> element containing the text Math output error. You can replace this with your own function for
trapping run-time errors in the output processors.
renderActions: {...}
This is an object that specifies the actions to take during the MathJax.typeset() (and its under-
lying MathJax.startup.document.render() call), and the various conversion functions, such as
MathJax.tex2svg() (and their underlying MathJax.startup.document.convert() call). The
structure of the object is name: value pairs separated by commas, where the name gives an identifier
for each action, and the value is an array consisting of a number and zero, one, or two functions, followed
optionally by a boolean value.
The number gives the priority of the action (lower numbers are executed first when the actions are performed).
The first function gives the action to perform when a document is rendered as a whole, and the second a function
to perform when an individual expression is converted or re-rendered. These can be given either as an explicit
function, or as a string giving the name of a method to call (the first should be a method of a MathDocument,
and the second of a MathItem). If either is an empty string, that action is not performed. If the function is
missing, the method name is taken from the name of the action. The boolean value tells whether the second
function should be performed during a convert() call (when true) or only during a rerender() call (when
false).
For example,

MathJax = {
options: {
renderActions: {
compile: [MathItem.STATE.COMPILED],
metrics: [MathItem.STATE.METRICS, 'getMetrics', '', false]
}
}
};

specifies two actions, the first called compile that uses the compile() method of the MathDocument
and MathItem, and the second called metrics that uses the getMetric() call for the MathDocument
when the document is rendered, but does nothing during a rerender() or convert() call or an individual
MathItem.
If the first function is given explicitly, it should take one argument, the MathDocument on which it is running.
If the second function is given explicitly, it should take two arguments, the MathItem that is being processed,
and the MathDocument in which it exists.

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The default value includes actions for the main calls needed to perform rendering of math: find, compile,
metrics, typeset, update, and reset. These find the math in the document, call the input jax on the
math that was located, obtain the metric information for the location of the math, call the output jax to convert
the internal format to the output format, insert the output into the document, and finally reset the internal flags
so that a subsequent typesetting action will process properly.
You can add your own actions by adding new named actions to the renderActions object, or override
existing ones by re-using an existing name from above. See the MathML Support section for an example of
doing this. The priority number tells where in the list your actions will be performed.
Loading extensions may cause additional actions to be inserted into the list. For example, the ui/menu compo-
nent inserts an action to add the menu event handlers to the math after it is inserted into the page.

23.3.3 Developer Options

OutputJax: null
The OutputJax object instance to use for this MathDocument. If you are using MathJax components, the
startup component will create this automatically. If you are writing a Node application accessing MathJax code
directly, you will need to create the output jax yourself and pass it to the document through this option.
InputJax: null
The InputJax object instance to use for this MathDocument. If you are using MathJax components, the
startup component will create this automatically. If you are writing a Node application accessing MathJax code
directly, you will need to create the input jax yourself and pass it to the document through this option.
MmlFactory: null
The MmlFactory object instance to use for creating the internal MathML objects. This allows you to create a
subclass of MmlFactory and pass that to the document. A null value means use the default MmlFactory
class and make a new instance of that.
MathList: DefaultMathList
The MathList object class to use for managing the list of MathItem objects associated with the
MathDocument. This allows you to create a subclass of MathList and pass that to the document.
MathItem: DefaultMathItem
The MathItem object class to use for maintaining the information about a single expression in a
MathDocument. This allows you to create a subclass of MathItem and pass that to the document. The
document Handler object may define its own subclass of MathItem and use that as the default instead. For
example, the HTML handler uses HTMLMathItem objects for this option.

23.4 Accessibility Extensions Options

MathJax contains several extensions meant to support those who need assistive technology, such as screen readers.
See the Accessibility Components page for more details. The options that control these extensions are listed below.
• Semantic-Enrich Extension Options
• Complexity Extension Options
• Explorer Extension Options
• Assisitve-MML Extension Options

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23.4.1 Semantic-Enrich Extension Options

This extension coordinates the creation and embedding of semantic information generated by the enrichment process
within the MathJax output for use by the other extensions.
The semantic-enrich extension adds two actions to the document’s default renderActions object: an enrich action
to perform the semantic enrichment, and an attachSpeech action to attach speech (if it is being generated) to the
output.

The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
options: {
enrichSpeech: 'none', // or 'shallow', or 'deep'
}
};

Option Descriptions

enrichSpeech: 'none'
This setting controls whether MathJax uses the Speech-Rule Engine (SRE) to generate a speech string for the
expressions on the page. If set to 'none' (the default), no speech is generated. When set to 'shallow',
speech is generated only for the complete equation, and when set to 'deep', every speakable element is marked
with its speech string. These speech strings are put in data-semantic-speech attributes, when generated.
The output processors will find the top-most speech string and set the appropriate attributes on the output they
generate so that screen readers can find it.

23.4.2 Complexity Extension Options

This extension generates a complexity metric and inserts elements that allow the expressions to be collapsed by the
user by clicking on the expression based on that metric. Use the 'a11y/complexity' block of your MathJax
configuration to configure the extension.
The complexity extension adds a complexity action to the document’s default renderActions object.

The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
options: {
makeCollapsible: true // insert maction to allow collapsing
}
};

Option Descriptions

makeCollapsible: true
This setting determines whether the extension will insert <maction> elements to allow complex expressions
to be “collapsed” so that they take up less space, and produce condensed speech strings that are simpler to listen
to. When false, the expression is not altered, but elements are marked (internally) if they would be collapsible.

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Developer Options

identifyCollapsible: true
This setting determines whether the complexity numbers computed for each element in the expression should
take collapsing into account. If true, parents of collapsible elements will get complexities that reflect the col-
lapsible elements being collapsed. When false, the complexities assume no collapsing will take place.
Collapse: Collapse
The Collapse object class to use for creating the <maction> elements needed for collapsing complex
expressions. This allows you to create a subclass of Collapse and pass that to the document.
ComplexityVisitor: ComplexityVisitor
The ComplexityVisitor object class to use for managing the computations of complexity values. This
allows you to create a subclass of ComplexityVisitor and pass that to the document.

23.4.3 Explorer Extension Options

This extension provides support for interactive exploration of expressions within the page. See the Accessibility
Features page for details about how this works.
The explorer extension adds an explorable action to the document’s default renderActions object.

The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
options: {
a11y: {
speech: true, // switch on speech output
braille: true, // switch on Braille output
subtitles: true, // show speech as a subtitle
viewBraille: false, // display Braille output as subtitles
speechRules: 'mathspeak-default', // speech rules as domain-style pair

backgroundColor: 'Blue', // color for background of selected sub-

˓→expression
backgroundOpacity: .2, // opacity for background of selected sub-
˓→expression

foregroundColor: 'Black', // color to use for text of selected sub-

˓→expression

foregroundOpacity: 1, // opacity for text of selected sub-

˓→expression

highlight: 'None', // type of highlighting for collapsible sub-

˓→expressions
flame: false, // color collapsible sub-expressions
hover: false, // show collapsible sub-expression on mouse
˓→hovering

treeColoring: false, // tree color expression

magnification: 'None', // type of magnification

magnify: '400%', // percentage of magnification of zoomed
˓→expressions

keyMagnifier: false, // switch on magnification via key

˓→exploration
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mouseMagnifier: false, // switch on magnification via mouse hovering
align: 'top', // placement of magnified expression

infoType: false // show semantic type on mouse hovering

infoRole: false, // show semantic role on mouse hovering
infoPrefix: false, // show speech prefixes on mouse hovering
}
}
};

Option Descriptions

The a11y options belong roughly to one of the following four categories:

Speech Options

speech: true
Sets if speech output is produced. By default speech is computed for every expression on the page and output
once the explorer is started.
braille: true
Sets whether or not Braille is produced and output for an expression.
subtitles: true
This option indicates whether the speech string for the selected sub-expression will be shown as a subtitle under
the expression as it is explored.
viewBraille: false
This option indicates whether Braille output will be displayed under the expression as it is explored.
speechRules: 'mathspeak-default'
This option selects the speech rules used for speech generation in a domain-style pair. For a list of possible
selections please see the documentation of the Speech Rule Engine, e.g., by running

npx speech-rule-engine --options

Highlighting Options

foregroundColor: 'Black'
This specifies the color to use for the text of the selected sub-expression during expression exploration. The
color should be chosen from among the following: 'Blue', 'Red', 'Green', 'Yellow', 'Cyan',
'Magenta', 'White', and 'Black'.
foregroundOpacity: 1
This indicates the opacity to use for the text of the selected sub-expression.
backgroundColor: 'Blue'
This specifies the background color to use for the selected sub-expression during expression exploration. The
color should be chosen from among the following: 'Blue', 'Red', 'Green', 'Yellow', 'Cyan',
'Magenta', 'White', and 'Black'.
backgroundOpacity: .2
This indicates the opacity to use for the background color of the selected sub-expression.

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highlight: 'None'
Chooses a particular highlighter for showing collapsible sub-expressions. Choices are 'None', 'Flame', and
'Hover'.
flame: false
This flag switches on the Flame highligher, which permanently highlights collapsible sub-expressions, with
successively darkening background for nested collapsible expressions.
hover: false
This switches on the Hover highlighter that highlights collapsible sub-expression when hovering over them with
a the mouse pointer.
Note, that having both 'hover' and 'flame' set to true can lead to unexpected side-effects.
treeColoring: false
This setting enables tree coloring, by which expressions are visually distinguished by giving neighbouring sym-
bols different, ideally contrasting foreground colors.

Magnification Options

magnification: 'None'
This option specifies a particular magnifier for enlarging sub-expressions. Choices are 'None', 'Keyboard',
and 'Mouse'.
magnify: '400%'
This gives the magnification factor (as a percent) to use for the zoomed sub-expression when zoomed sub-
expressions are being displayed during expression exploration. The default is 400%.
keyMagnifier: false
Switches on zooming of sub-expressions during keyboard exploration of an expression.
mouseMagnifier: false
Switches on zooming of sub-expressions by hovering with the mouse pointer.
Note, using both 'keyMagnifier' and 'mouseMagnifier together can lead to unwanted side-effect.
align: 'top'
This setting tells where to place the zoomed version of the selected sub-expression, when zoomed sub-
expressions are being displayed during expression exploration.

Semantic Info Options

Semantic information explorers are a feature that displays some semantic information of a sub-expression when hov-
ering over it with the mouse pointer. Note, multiple information explorers work well together.
infoType: false
Activates an explorer that investigates the semantic type of sub-expressions. The type is an immutable property
of an expression, that is independent of its particular position in a formula. Note, however that types can change
depending on subject area of a document.
infoRole: false
Activates an explorer to present the semantic role of a sub-expression, which is dependent on its context in the
overall expression.
infoPrefix: false
Activates explorer for prefix information, which pertains to the position of a sub-expression. Examples are
'exponent', 'radicand', etc. These would also be announced during interactive exploration with speech
output.

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For more details on these concepts, see also the documentation of the Speech Rule Engine.

Note: While multiple keyboard based exploration techniques work well together and can be easily employed simul-
taneously, switching on multiple mouse based exploration tools can lead to unexpected interactions of the tools and
often unpredictable side effects.

23.4.4 Assisitve-MML Extension Options

This extension adds visually hidden MathML to MathJax’s output that can be voiced by some screen readers. See the
Screen Reader Support section for more details on how this works.
The assisitive-mml extension is included in all the combined components, and is active by default, so screen reader
users will not need to do anything to activate it. There is a menu item that controls whether to insert the assistive
MathML, so visual users can turn it off if they wish.
The extension adds an action to the document’s default renderActions object that does the MathML insertion. You can
override that by using the following configuration.

MathJax = {
options: {
renderActions: {
assistiveMML: []
}
}
};

23.5 Contextual Menu Options

The ui/menu component implements the contextual menu that you get when you right-click (or control-click) on a
typeset expression. The settings in the menu are “sticky”, which means that they are saved from page to page and
session to session (though they web-site specific, so each web site has its own saved settings).
As a page author, you can alter the default settings of the menu by using the menuOptions block of the options
section of your MathJax configuration, as described below.
The ui/menu component adds a render action called addMenu that attaches the menu event handlers to the typeset
output. (It also adds a second render action called checkLoading that mediates the loading of extensions needed by
the contextual menu. For example, when the assistive a11y/explorer component is first activated, MathJax may need
to load the a11y/explorer component; this render action makes sure that has happened before any math is typeset.)
If you want to disable the contextual menu, you can override the addMenu render action:

MathJax = {
options: {
renderActions: {
addMenu: [0, '', '']
}
}
};

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23.5.1 The Configuration Block

MathJax = {
options: {
menuOptions: {
settings: {
texHints: true, // put TeX-related attributes on MathML
semantics: false, // put original format in <semantic> tag in MathML
zoom: 'NoZoom', // or 'Click' or 'DoubleClick' as zoom trigger
zscale: '200%', // zoom scaling factor
renderer: 'CHTML', // or 'SVG'
alt: false, // true if ALT required for zooming
cmd: false, // true if CMD required for zooming
ctrl: false, // true if CTRL required for zooming
shift: false, // true if SHIFT required for zooming
scale: 1, // scaling factor for all math
collapsible: false, // true if complex math should be collapsible
inTabOrder: true, // true if tabbing includes math
},
annotationTypes: {
TeX: ['TeX', 'LaTeX', 'application/x-tex'],
StarMath: ['StarMath 5.0'],
Maple: ['Maple'],
ContentMathML: ['MathML-Content', 'application/mathml-content+xml'],
OpenMath: ['OpenMath']
}
}
}
};

23.5.2 Option Descriptions

settings: {...}
These settings give the default menu settings for the page, though a user can change them using the menu. These
are described in the comments in the example above.
annotationTypes: {...}
These are the settings for the “Annotation” submenu of the “Show Math As” menu. If the <math> root element
has a <semantics> child that contains one of the specified annotation formats, the source will be available
via the “Show Math As” and “Copy to Clipboard” menus. Each format has a list of possible encodings. For
example, the line

TeX: ['TeX', 'LaTeX', 'application/x-tex']

maps an annotation with an encoding of TeX, LaTeX, or application/x-tex to the “TeX” entry in the
“Annotation” sub-menus.

23.5.3 Developer Options

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MathJax = {
options: {
MenuClass: Menu,
menuOptions: {
jax: {
CHTML: null,
SVG: null
}
}
}
};

menuClass: Menu
The Menu object class to use for creating the menu. This allows you to create a subclass of Menu and pass that
to the document in pace of the default one.
jax: {CHTML: null, SVG: null}
This lists the output jax instances to be used for the different output formats. These will get set up automatically
by the menu code if you don’t specify one, so it is only necessary to set these if you want to manage the options
specially.

23.6 Startup and Loader Options

MathJax’s components system is based on two tools that handler loading the various components and setting up the
objects and methods needed to use the loaded components. They both use options to control their actions, as described
below.

23.6.1 Loader Options

The loader component is the one responsible for loading the requested MathJax components. It is configured using the
loader block in your MathJax configuration object. The loader block can also contain sub-blocks of configuration
options for individual components, as described below in Component Configuration.

The Configuration Block

In the example below, Loader represents the MathJax.loader object, for brevity.

MathJax = {
loader: {
paths: {mathjax: Loader.getRoot()}, // the path prefixes for use in
˓→specifying components

source: {}, // the URLs for components, when

˓→defaults aren't right

dependencies: {}, // arrays of dependencies for each

˓→component

provides: {}, // components provided by each

˓→component

load: [], // array of components to load

ready: Loader.defaultReady.bind(Loader), // function to call when everything
˓→is loaded

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failed: function (error) { // function to call if a component
˓→fails to load

console.log(`MathJax(${error.package || '?'}): ${error.message}`);

}
require: null // function to use for loading
˓→components

}
};

Option Descriptions

load: []
This array lists the components that you want to load. If you are using a combined component file, you may not
need to request any additional components. If you are using using the startup component explicitly, then you
will need to list all the components you want to load.
ready: MathJax.loader.defaultReady.bind(MathJax.loader)
This is a function that is called when all the components have been loaded successfully. By default, it simply
calls the startup component’s ready() function, if there is one. You can override this with your own function,
can can call MathJax.loader.defaultReady() after doing whatever startup you need to do. See also
the Component Configuration section for how to tie into individual components being loaded.
failed: (error) => console.log(`MathJax(${error.package || '?'}): ${error.message}`)}
This is a function that is called if one or more of the components fails to load properly. The default is to print a
message to the console log, but you can override it to trap loading errors in MathJax components. See also the
Component Configuration section below for how to trap individual component errors.
paths: {mathjax: Loader.getRoot()}
This object links path prefixes to their actual locations. By default, the mathjax prefix is predefined to be the
location from which the MathJax file is being loaded. You can use [mathjax]/... to identify a component,
and this prefix is prepended automatically for any that doesn’t already have a prefix. For example, input/tex
will become [mathjax]/input/jax automatically.
When the TeX require extension is loaded, an additional tex path is created in order to be able to load the
various TeX extensions.
You can define your own prefixes, for example,
MathJax = {
loader: {
paths: {custom: 'https://my.site.com/mathjax'},
load: ['[custom]/myComponent']
}
};

which defines a custom prefix that you can used to access custom extensions. The URL can even be to a
different server than where you loaded the main MathJax code, so you can host your own custom extensions
and still use a CDN for the main MathJax code.
You can define as many different paths as you need. Note that paths can refer to other paths, so you could do
MathJax = {
loader: {
paths: {
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custom: 'https://my.site.com/mathjax',
extensions: '[custom]/extensions'
},
load: ['[extensions]/myExtension']
}
};

to define the extensions prefix in terms of the custom prefix.

source: {}
This object allows you to override the default locations of components and provide a specific location on a
component-by-component basis. For example:

MathJax = {
loader: {
source: {
'special/extension': 'https://my.site.com/mathjax/special/extension.js'
},
load: ['special/extension']
}
};

gives an explicit location to obtain the special/extension component.

dependencies: {}
This object maps component names to arrays of names of components that must be loaded before the given
one. The startup component pre-populates this object with the dependencies among the MathJax components,
but you can add your own dependencies if you make custom components that rely on others. For example,
if you make a custom TeX extension that relies on another TeX component, you would want to indicate that
dependency so that if your extension is loaded via \require, for example, the loader will automatically load
the dependencies first.

MathJax = {
loader: {
source: {
'[tex]/myExtension: 'https://my.site.com/mathjax/tex/myExtension.js'},
},
dependencies: {
'[tex]/myExtension': ['input/tex-base', '[tex]/newcommand', '[tex]/enclose']
}
}
};

This would cause the newcommand and enclose components to be loaded prior to loading your extension, and
would load your extension from the given URL even though you may be getting MathJax from a CDN.
provides: {}
This object indicates the components that are provided by a component that may include several sub-
components. For example, the input/tex component loads the newcommand component (and several others),
so the provides object indicates that via

loader: {
provides: {
'input/tex': [
'input/tex-base',
'[tex]/ams',
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'[tex]/newcommand',
'[tex]/noundefined',
'[tex]/require',
'[tex]/autoload',
'[tex]/configMacros'
]
}
}

The startup component pre-populates this object with the dependencies among the MathJax components, but if
you define your own custom components that include other components, you may need to declare the compo-
nents that it provides, so that if another component has one of them as a dependency, that dependency will not
be loaded again (since your code already includes it).
For example, if your custom component [tex]/myExtension depends on the newcommand and enclose compo-
nents, then

MathJax = {
loader: {
source: {
'[tex]/myExtension: 'https://my.site.com/mathjax/tex/myExtension.js'},
},
dependencies: {
'[tex]/myExtension': ['input/tex-base', '[tex]/newcommand', '[tex]/enclose']
},
load: ['input/tex', '[tex]/myExtension']
}
};

will load the `input/tex` component, which provides both

`input/tex-base` and `[tex]/newcommand`, and then load
`[tex]/enclose` before loading your `[tex]/myExtension`.

require: null
This is a function to use for loading components. It should accept a string that is the location of the component
to load, and should do whatever is needed to load that component. If the loading is asynchronous, it should
return a promise that is resolved when the component is loaded, ortherwise it should return nothing. If there is
an error loading the component, it should throw an error.
If set null, the default is to insert a <script> tag into the document that loads the component.
For use in node applications, set this value to require, which will use node’s require command to load
components. E.g.

MathJax = {
loader: {
require: require
}
};

Component Configuration

In addition to the options listed above, individual compoments can be configured in the loader block by using a
sub-block with the component’s name, and any of the options listed below. For example,

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MathJax = {
loader: {
load: ['input/tex'],
'input/tex': {
ready: (name) => console.log(name + ' ready'),
failed: (error) => console.log(error.package + ' failed')
}
}
};

which sets up ready() and failed() functions to process when the input/tex component is either loaded success-
fully or fails to load.
ready: undefined
This is a function that has an argument that is the name of the component being loaded, and is called when the
component and all its dependencies are fully loaded.
failed: undefined
This is a function that has an argument that is a PackageError object (which is a subclass of Error with
an extra field, that being pacakge, the name of the component being loaded). It is called when the component
fails to load (and that can be because one of its dependencies fails to load).
checkReady: undefined
This is a function that tages no argument and is called when the component is loaded, but before the ready()
function is called. It can be used o do post-processing after the component is loaded, but before other compo-
nents are signaled that it is ready. For example, it could be used to load other components; e.g., the output/chtml
component can use its configuration to determine which font to load, and then load that. If this function returns
a promise object, the ready() function will not be called until the promise is resolved.

23.6.2 Startup Options

The startup component is responsible for creating the objects needed by MathJax to perform the mathematical type-
setting of your pages, and for setting up the methods you may need to call in order to do that. It is configured using
the startup block in your configuration object.

The Configuration Block

In the example below, Startup represents the MathJax.startup object, for brevity.
MathJax = {
startup: {
elements: null, // The elements to typeset (default is document body)
typeset: true, // Perform initial typeset?
ready: Startup.defaultReady.bind(Startup), // Called when components are
˓→loaded

pageReady: Startup.defaultPageReady.bind(Startup), // Called when MathJax and

˓→page are ready

document: document, // The document (or fragment or string) to work in

input: [], // The names of the input jax to use from among those
˓→loaded

output: null, // The name for the output jax to use from among those
˓→loaded

handler: null, // The name of the handler to register from among those
˓→loaded
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

adaptor: null // The name for the DOM adaptor to use from among those
˓→loaded

}
};

Option Descriptions

elements: null
This is either null or an array of DOM elements whose contents should be typeset. The elements can either be
actual DOM elements, or strings that give CSS selectors for the elements to typeset.
typeset: true
This determines whether the initial typesetting action should be performed when the page is ready.
ready: Startup.defaultReady.bind(Startup)
This is a function that is called when MathJax is loaded and ready to go. It is called by the loader when all the
components are loaded. The default action is to create all the objects needed for MathJax, and set up the call
to the pageReady() function below. You can override this function if you want to modify the setup process;
see Performing Actions During Startup for more details. Note that this function may be called before the page
is complete, so unless you are modifying the objects created by the startup module, replacing pageReady()
may be the better choice.
pageReady: Startup.defaultPageReady.bind(Startup)
This is a function that is called when MathJax is ready to go and the page is ready to be processed. The default
action is to perform the initial typesetting of the page, but you can override it to do whatever you would like.
See Performing Actions During Startup for more details and examples of how to do this.
document: document
This is the document (or fragment or string of serialized HTML) that you want to process. By default (for
in-browser use) it is the browser document. When there is no global document variable, it is an empty HTML
document.
input: []
This is an array of names of input processors that you want to use, from among the ones that have been loaded.
So if you have loaded the code for several input jax, but only want to use the tex input jax, for example, set
this to ['tex']. If set to an empty array, then all loaded input jax are used.
output: null
This is the name of the output processor that you want to use, from among the ones that have been loaded. So if
you have loaded the code for several output jax, but only want to use the svg output jax, for example, set this
to 'svg'. If set to null or an empty string, then the first output jax that is loaded will be used.
handler: null
This is the name of the document handler that you want to use, from among the ones that have been loaded.
Currently, there is only one handler, the HTML handler, so unless you are creating your own handlers, leave this
as null.
adaptor: null
This is the name of the DOM adaptor that you want to use, from among the ones that have been loaded. By
default the components load the browser adaptor, but you can load the liteDOM adaptor for use in node
applications; if you do, it will set this value so that it will be used automatically.

These modules use the global MathJax object to determine what you want loaded, and alter that object to include
the methods and objects that they set up. The initial value of MathJax is saved as MathJax.config, and other

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properties are added to MathJax depending on the components that get loaded. For example, the startup component
adds MathJax.startup(), which contains the objects that the startup module creates, like the input and output
jax, the math ocument object, the DOM adaptor, and so on. See the MathJax API documentation for more information.
The MathJax variable can also contain configuration blocks intended for individual components when they are
loaded. For example, it can have a tex block to configure the input/tex component. See Configuring MathJax for
more details.
Note that you must set up the global MathJax object before loading MathJax itself. If you try to that afterward, you
will overwrite the MathJax variable, and all the values that MathJax has set in them. See the Configuring MathJax
After it is Loaded section for more about how to change the configuration after MathJax is loaded if you need to do
that.

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 CHAPTER 24

MathJax in Dynamic Content

This page is under construction

If you are writing a dynamic web page where content containing mathematics may appear after MathJax has already
typeset the rest of the page, then you will need to tell MathJax to look for mathematics in the page again when that
new content is produced. To do that, you need to use the MathJax.typeset() method. This will cause MathJax
to look for unprocessed mathematics on the page and typeset it, leaving unchanged any math that has already been
typeset.
This command runs synchronously, but if the mathematics on the page uses \require or causes an extension to
be auto-loaded (via the autoload component), this will cause the typeset call to fail. In this case, you should use
MathJax.typesetPromise() instead. This returns a promise that is resolves when the typesetting is complete.
You should not start more than one typesetting operation at a time, so if you are using MathJax.
typesetPromise() and will be calling it more than once, you may want to retain the promise it returns and
chain your subsequent typeset calls to it. See the Handling Asynchronous Typesetting section for more details.
More information will be coming to this section in the future.

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 CHAPTER 25

Custom Extensions

This page is uncer construction

See the Building a Custom Component section for an example of building custom extensions to MathJax.
See also the MathJax Web Demos repository for some customization examples for use in the browser, and the MathJax
Node Demos for a custom extension in node.
More information will be coming to this section in the future.

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 CHAPTER 26

The MathJax Processing Model

This page is under construction

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 CHAPTER 27

Synchronizing your code with MathJax

This page is under construction

MathJax version 2 used queues, callbacks, and signals as a means of coordinating your code with the actions of
MathJax. Version 3 uses the more modern tool know as a promise to synchronize your code with MathJax. See the
Handling Asynchronous Typesetting section for examples of typesetting using promises.
In addition to promises, MathJax version 3 introduces a renderActions configuration option that provides a means
of linking into MathJax’s processing pipeline. This is a priorities list of functions to call during processing, which
includes the default actions of finding the math in the page, compiling it into the internal format, getting font metrics
for the surrounding text, typesetting the mathematics, inserting the math into the page, adding menu actions, and so
on. You can insert your own functions into this chain to add more functionality, or even remove the existing steps to
trim down what MathJax does.
More information will be coming to this section in the future.

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 CHAPTER 28

Using the MathJax API

This page is under construction

28.1 The Component API

This page is under construction

28.2 The Direct API

This page is under construction

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 CHAPTER 29

MathJax Frequently Asked Questions

• Which license is MathJax distributed under?

• Will MathJax make my page load slower even if there’s no math?
• Mathematics is not rendering properly in IE. How do I fix that?
• What should IE’s X-UA-Compatible meta tag be set to?
• Some of my mathematics is too large or too small. How do I get it right?
• My mathematics is private. Is it safe to use MathJax?
• Does MathJax support Presentation and/or Content MathML?
• How do I create mathematical expressions for display with MathJax?
• I ran into a problem with MathJax. How do I report it?
• Why doesn’t the TeX macro \something work?
• Does MathJax support user-defined TeX macros?

29.1 Which license is MathJax distributed under?

MathJax is distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

29.2 Will MathJax make my page load slower even if there’s no math?

It depends on how you have configured and loaded MathJax. The combined component files like tex-chtml.js contain
a full copy of MathJax and all the components needed for it to process the given input and output format, including
all the font data (but not the actual fonts themselves). So these files can be quite large, and can take some time to
download. On the other hand, it is a single file (unlike in version 2, where multiple files needed to be loaded), so there

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should not be the delays associated with establishing multiple connections to a server. If you use the async attribute
on the script that loads MathJax, that allows the browser to put off loading MathJax until the rest of the page is ready,
so that can help speed up your initial page loading as well.

29.3 Mathematics is not rendering properly in IE. How do I fix that?

Currently, MathJax version 3 only supports IE11, sop if you are using an earlier version, you will need to update your
copy, or use a different browser.
If you are using IE11, then please open the MathJax homepage at www.mathjax.org in IE to see if that loads correctly.
If the MathJax website does not display mathematics properly, there may be an issue with your security settings in
Internet Explorer. Please check the following settings:
• “Active Scripting” under the Scripting section should be enabled, as it allows JavaScript to run.
• “Run ActiveX controls and Plugins” should be enabled (or prompted) in the “ActiveX Controls and Plugins”
section.
• “Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting” needs to be enabled (or prompted) in the same “ActiveX
Controls and Plugins” section. Note that it requires a restart of IE if you change this setting.
• “Font Download” has to be enabled (or prompted) in the “Downloads” section. This is required for MathJax to
use web-based fonts for optimal viewing experience.
You may need to select Custom Level security to make these changes. If you have verified that the above settings are
correct, tried clearing your cache and restarting IE. If you are still experiencing problems with displaying mathematics
on www.mathjax.org, we would appreciate it if you reported the problem to the MathJax issue tracker so we can
look into it. See the section on issue tracking for details.
If the MathJax site does render properly, this indicates that there may be something wrong with the webpage you were
trying to view initially. If you manage that website, then make sure that it is using the latest version of MathJax, and
that you have included the line
<script src=”https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6”></script>
before the script that loads MathJax itself. If you don’t manage the website yourself, you may have to report the issue
to the maintainers of the site in order to have it resolved.

29.4 What should IE’s X-UA-Compatible meta tag be set to?

We strongly suggest to follow Microsoft’s suggestion to use IE=edge. That is, in the document <head> include

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">

before any other tags in the <head>. This will force all IE versions to use their latest engine which is the optimal
setting for MathJax. For more information, see the Microsoft documentation on compatibility modes.

29.5 Some of my mathematics is too large or too small. How do I get

it right?

MathJax renders mathematics dynamically so that formulas and symbols are nicely integrated into the surrounding
text — with matching font size, margins, and baseline. In other words: it should look right. If your mathematics is
too large or too small in comparison to its surroundings, you may be using the incorrect typesetting style. Following

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LaTeX conventions, MathJax supports two typesetting styles: in-line and “display” equations (one set off from the
paragraph as a separate line). For in-line equations, MathJax tries hard to maintain the inter-line spacing. This means
things like fractions and roots are vertically compressed, and smaller fonts are used. Display equations are shown as a
separate paragraph and can be rendered with more space and slightly larger fonts. The standard delimiters for in-line
equations in TeX notation are \(...\), while those for display equations are $$...$$ or \[...\], but both types
of delimiters can be customized. For how to configure MathJax to scale all mathematics relative to the surrounding
text, check our documentation for Output Processor Options.

29.6 My mathematics is private. Is it safe to use MathJax?

Yes. MathJax is JavaScript code that is runs within the user’s browser, so your site’s actual content never leaves the
browser while MathJax is rendering. If you are using MathJax from a CDN, it interacts with a web server to get font
data and MathJax code, but this is all put together in the browser of the reader. If you have concerns about cross-
site scripting, you can access the CDN service using the secure https protocol to prevent tampering with the code
between the CDN and a browser; or, if you prefer, you can install MathJax on your own web server, or for off-line use.
MathJax does not reference scripts from other websites. The MathJax code is, of course, open source which means
that you can review it and inspect its integrity.

29.7 Does MathJax support Presentation and/or Content MathML?

MathML comes in two types: Presentation MathML, which describes what an equation looks like, and Content
MathML, which describes what an equation means. By default, MathJax works with Presentation MathML and offers
an extension for Content MathML, see the documentation on MathML support, which has not yet been converted to
version 3.
You can also convert your Content MathML expressions to Presentation MathML using xslt, see for example
David Carlisle’s web-xslt collection. A more detailed explanation of the difference between Content and Presenta-
tion MathML can be found in the module “Presentation MathML Versus Content MathML” at cnx.org.

29.8 How do I create mathematical expressions for display with Math-

Jax?

MathJax is a method to display mathematics. It is not an authoring environment, and so you will need another program
to create mathematical expressions. The most common languages for mathematics on the computer are (La)TeX and
MathML, and there are many authoring tools for these languages.
LaTeX code is essentially plain text, and so you do not need a special program to write it (although complete LaTeX
authoring environments do exist). If you are not familiar with LaTeX, you will need some determination to learn and
master the language due to its specialized nature and rich vocabulary of symbols. There are various good tutorials on
the net, but there is no one-size-fits-all best one. A good starting point is the TeX User Group, or have a look at the
LaTeX Wiki book.
MathML is an XML-based web format for mathematical expressions. MathML3, the latest version, has been an
official W3C recommendation since October 2010. MathML is widely supported by Computer Algebra Systems and
can be created with a choice of authoring tools, including Microsoft Office with the MathType equation editor. A list
of software the supports MathML may be found in The W3C MathML software list.

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29.9 I ran into a problem with MathJax. How do I report it?

See the section on Reporting Issues for the steps to take when you think you have found a bug in MathJax.

29.10 Why doesn’t the TeX macro \something work?

It really depends on what \something is. We have a full list of the Supported TeX/LaTeX commands. If the
command you want to use is not in this list, you may be able to define a TeX macro for it yourself, or if you want to get
really advanced, you can define custom JavaScript that implements it (see the Custom Extensions section for details).
Keep in mind that MathJax is meant for typesetting math on the web. It only replicates the math functionality of
LaTeX and not the text formatting capabilities. Any text formatting on the web should be done in HTML and CSS, not
TeX. If you would like to convert full TeX documents into HTML to publish online, you should use a TeX to HTML
converter like LaTeXML, Tralics, or tex4ht, but you should realize that TeX conversion tools are unlikely produce
results as good as controlling the HTML and CSS source yourself.

29.11 Does MathJax support user-defined TeX macros?

Yes, you can define TeX macros in MathJax the same way you do in LaTeX with \newcommand, or \def. An
example is \newcommand{\water}{{\rm H_{2}O}}, which will output the chemical formula for water when
you use the \water command. The \renewcommand command works as well. You can also store macros in the
MathJax configuration. For more information, see the documentation.

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 CHAPTER 30

MathJax Badges

We are proud of the work we have done on MathJax, and we hope you are proud to use it. If you would like to show
your support for the MathJax project, please consider including one of our “Powered by MathJax” web badges on your
pages that use it.

30.1 The MathJax Badges

Thanks to our friends at OER Glue for designing the last two badges.

30.2 The MathJax Logo

30.3 Alternative versions

While we do not allow the modification of the badges or the logo, we are open to requests for different versions.
• An SVG version of the square badge is available.
• Smaller versions of the main logo are available
– 96x20
– 60x20
– 60x12
– 60x12 (gif)

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30.4 Rules

We are committed to maintaining the highest standards of excellence for MathJax, and part of that is avoiding con-
fusion and misleading impressions; therefore, if you do use our badge or logo, we ask that you observe these simple
rules (for the fine print, see below):

30.4.1 Things You Can Do

• Use the MathJax Logo or Badges in marketing, and other publicity materials related to MathJax.
• Distribute unchanged MathJax products (code, development tools, documentation) as long as you distribute
them without charge.
• Describe your own software as “based on MathJax technology”, or “incorporating MathJax source code” if your
software includes modified MathJax products.
• Link to MathJax’s website(s) by using the logos and badges we provide.
• Use MathJax’s word marks in describing and advertising your services or products relating to a MathJax product,
so long as you don’t do anything that might mislead customers. For example, it’s OK if your website says,
“Customization services for MathJax available here”.
• Make t-shirts, desktop wallpaper, or baseball caps though only for yourself and your friends (meaning people
from whom you don’t receive anything of value in return).

30.4.2 Things You Cannot Do

• Alter our logo or badges in any way.

• Use our logo or badge online without including the link to the MathJax home page.
• Place our logo or badges in such close proximity to other content that it is indistinguishable.
• Make our logo or badges the most distinctive or prominent feature on your website, printed material or other
content.
• Use our logo or badges in a way that suggests any type of association or partnership with MathJax or approval,
sponsorship or endorsement by MathJax (unless allowed via a license from us).
• Use our logo or badges in a way that is harmful, deceptive, obscene or otherwise objectionable to the average
person.
• Use our logo or badges on websites or other places containing content associated with hate speech, pornography,
gambling or illegal activities.
• Use our logo or badges in, or in connection with, content that disparages us or sullies our reputation.

30.4.3 And now the fine print:

The words and logotype “MathJax,” the MathJax badges, and any combination of the foregoing, whether integrated
into a larger whole or standing alone, are MathJax’s trademarks. You are authorized to use our trademarks under
the terms and conditions above, and only on the further condition that you download the trademarks directly from
our website. MathJax retains full, unfettered, and sole discretion to revoke this trademark license for any reason
whatsoever or for no specified reason.

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 CHAPTER 31

Articles and Presentations

31.1 Articles

• Towards Universal Rendering in MathJax (W4A 2016) by Davide Cervone, Peter Krautzberger, Volker Sorge,
MathJax, 2016
• Towards ARIA Standards for Mathematical Markup (DEIMS 2016) by Davide Cervone, Peter Krautzberger,
Volker Sorge, MathJax, 2016
• Employing Semantic Analysis for Enhanced Accessibility Features in MathJax (ADS, CCNC 2016) by Davide
Cervone, Peter Krautzberger, Volker Sorge, MathJax, 2016
• Whitepaper: Towards MathJax v3.0 by Peter Krautzberger, Davide Cervone, Volker Sorge, MathJax, 2015
• Towards Meaningful Visual Abstraction of Mathematical Notation (MathUI, CICM 2015) by Davide Cervone,
Peter Krautzberger, Volker Sorge, MathJax, 2016
• MathML forges on by Peter Krautzberger, MathJax, 2014
• MathJax: A Platform for Mathematics on the Web”, Notices of the AMS by Davide Cervone, MathJax, 2012
• Accessible Pages with MathJax by Neil Soiffer Design Science, Inc., 2010
• Mathematics E-learning Community Benefits from MathJax by Hylke Koers, MathJax, 2010

31.2 Presentations

• Barrierereie Mathematik im Netz (in German) by Peter Krautzberger, MathJax, FernUni Hagen, Global Acces-
sibility Awareness Day, 2016
• Evolving Math Web Standards from a Usability Perspective by Peter Krautzberger, Davide Cervone, Volker
Sorge, MathJax, 2016 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle
• MathJax – beautiful mathematics on the web by Peter Krautzberger, MathJax, 2014
• MathML: math made for the web and beyond by Peter Krautzberger, MathJax, 2013

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• MathJax: The Past and the Future by Davide P. Cervone 2013 Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego
• MathJax from an Author’s Point of View by Davide P. Cervone 2013 Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego
• MathJax: a JavaScript-based engine for including TeX and MathML in HTML by Davide P. Cervone 2010 Joint
Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco
• MathType, Math Markup, and the Goal of Cut and Paste by Robert Miner 2010 Joint Mathematics Meetings in
San Francisco

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 CHAPTER 32

Upgrading from v2 to v3

MathJax v3 is a complete rewrite of MathJax from the ground up (see What’s New in MathJax v3.0), and so its internal
structure is quite different from that of version 2. That means MathJax v3 is not a drop-in replacement for MathJax
v2, and upgrading to version 3 takes some adjustment to your web pages. The sections below describe the changes
you will need to make, and the most important differences between v2 and v3.

Warning: If you are using the latest.js feature of MathJax v2 on a CDN, note that this will not update to
version 3 automatically, since there are significant and potentially breaking changes in version 3. There is, however,
a bug in latest.js in versions 2.7.5 and below; when the current version is 3.0 or higher, latest.js will
not use the highest version of 2.x, but instead will use the version from which latest.js has been taken. For
example, if you load latest.js from version 2.7.3, it currently is giving you version 2.7.5 as the latest version,
when version 3 is released to the CDN, your pages will revert to using version 2.7.3 again. This behavior has been
corrected in version 2.7.6, so if you change to loading latest.js from version 2.7.6, you should get the latest
2.x version regardless of the presence of version 3 on the CDN.

MathJax v3 is still a work in progress; not all features of version 2 have been converted to version 3 yet, and some
may not be. MathJax v2 will continue to be maintained as we work to move more features into version 3, but MathJax
v2 likely will not see much further development, just maintenance, once MathJax v3 is fully converted.
• Configuration Changes
• Changes in Loading MathJax
• Changes in the MathJax API
• Changes in Input and Output Jax
• No Longer Applies to Version 3
• Not Yet Ported to Version 3
• Contextual Menu Changes
• MathJax in Node
• Version 2 Compatibility Example

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32.1 Configuration Changes

There are a number of changes in version 3 that affect how MathJax is configured. In version 2, there were several
ways to provide configuration for MathJax; in MathJax 3, when you are using MathJax components, there is now
only one, which is to set the MathJax global to contain the configuration information prior to loading MathJax. In
particular, you no longer call MathJax.Hub.Config(), and this function does not exist in MathJax v3. See the
section Configuring MathJax for more details on how to configure MathJax.
In addition to requiring the use of the MathJax global variable for setting the configuration, the organization of the
configuration options have been changed to accommodate the new internal structure of MathJax, and some of their
names have changed as well. To help you convert your existing version 2 configurations to version 3, we provide a
conversion tool that you can use to obtain a version 3 configuration that is as close as possible to your current one.
Not all configuration parameters can be converted directly, however. For some of these, it is because the version
2 features have not yet been ported to version 3, but for others, the version 2 feature may simply not exist in the
new architecture of version 3. For example, MathJax v2 updates the page in phases, first removing the math source
expressions (e.g., the TeX code), then inserts a preview expression (fast to create, but not as accurately laid out), and
then goes back and produces high-quality typeset versions, which it inserts in chunks between page updates. MathJax
version 3 does not work that way (it does not change the page until the math is entirely typeset), and so the options
that control the math preview and the chunking of the equations for display simply have no counterparts in version 3.
Finally, configurations that change the MathJax code via augmenting the existing MathJax objects, or that hook into
MathJax’s processing pipeline via MathJax.Hub.Register.StartupHook() or one of the other hook mech-
anisms will not carry over to version 3. MathJax v3 does not use the queues, signals, and callbacks that are central to
version 2, so code that relies on them will have to be updated. See the Configuring and Loading MathJax section for
some approaches to these issues.

32.2 Changes in Loading MathJax

Just as there are changes in how MathJax is configured, there are also changes in how MathJax is loaded. With version
2, you load MathJax.js and indicate a combined configuration file using ?config= followed by the name of the
configuration file. This always required at least two files to be loaded (and often more than that), and the second file
was always loaded asynchronously, meaning MathJax always operated asynchronously.
In version 3, there is no longer a MathJax.js file, and you load a combined component file directly. E.g., you load
tex-chtml.js to get TeX with CommonHTML output. This reduces the number of files that need to be requested,
and improves performance. See Loading MathJax for more details.
Just as there is no need to use ?config= in version 3, the other parameters that could be set in this way also are
absent from version 3. So, for example, you can’t set delayStartupUntil in the script that loads MathJax.
The startup sequence operates fundamentally differently in version 3 from how it did in version 2. In version 2, Math-
Jax would begin its startup process immediately upon MathJax being loaded, queuing action to perform configuration
blocks, load extensions and jax, do the initial typesetting, and so on. It was difficult to insert your own actions into
this sequence, and timing issues could occur if you didn’t put your configuration in the right place.
In version 3, synchronization with MathJax is done through ES6 promises, rather than MathJax’s queues and signals,
and MathJax’s startup process is more straight-forward. You can insert your own code into the startup process more
easily, and can replace the default startup actions entirely, if you wish. The actions Mathjax takes during startup are

184 Chapter 32. Upgrading from v2 to v3

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better separated so that you can pick and choose the ones you want to perform. See the Startup Actions section for
more details on how to accomplish this.

32.3 Changes in the MathJax API

Because the internals have been completely redesigned, its API has changed, and so if you have been calling MathJax
functions, or have modified MathJax internals by augmenting the existing MathJax objects, that code will no longer
work with version 3, and will have to be modified. Some of the more important changes are discussed below.
• The Mathjax.Hub.Typeset() function has been replaced by the MathJax.typesetPromise() and
MathJax.typeset() functions. In fact, the MathJax.Hub has been removed entirely.
• The queues, signals, and callbacks that are central to version 2 have been replaced by ES6 promises in version 3.
In particular, you can use MathJax.startup.promise as a replacement for MathJax.Hub.Queue().
See the Handling Asynchronous Typesetting section for how this is done. See the Version 2 Compatibility
Example below for code that may make it possible for you to use your version 2 code in version 3.
• The MathJax.Hub.Register.StartupHook() and other related hooks have been replaced by
ready() functions in the loader component. So code that relies on these hooks to alter MathJax need to
be reworked. The Startup Actions section shows some mechanisms that can be used for this.
• Version 2 configurations could include an Augment() block that could be used to add (or override) methods
and data in the main MathJax objects. In version 3, this should be handled through subclassing the MathJax
object classes, and passing the new classes to the objects that use them. This can be done during the startup
component’s ready() function, when the MathJax classes are available, but before any of their instances have
been created. See the Startup Actions section for some ideas on how this can be done.
• The Augment configuration blocks and StartupHooks() function described above could be used in version
2 to extend MathJax’s capabilities, and in particular, to extend the TeX input jax by adding new javascript-based
macros. These version-2 mechanisms are not available in version 3; instead, TeX extensions are more formalized
in version 3. See the Building a Custom Component section for an example of how this can be done.
• In version 2, the mathematics that is located by MathJax is removed from the page and stored in special
<script> tags within the page. These are not visible to the reader, but mark the location and content of
the math on the page. It was possible in version 2 for programs to create these <script> tags themselves,
avoiding the need for MathJax to look for math delimiters, and for the page author to encode HTML special
characters like <, >, and & in their mathematics. Version 3 does not alter the document in this way, and does
not store the math that it locates in tags in the page. Instead, it keeps an external list of math objects (of the
MathItem class). So if you wish to use such scripts to store the math in the page initially, you can replace the
find action in the renderActions list to use a function that locates the scripts and creates the needed MathItem
objects. For example

MathJax = {
options: {
renderActions: {
find: [10, function (doc) {
for (const node of document.querySelectorAll('script[type^="math/tex"]'))
˓→{

const display = !!node.type.match(/; *mode=display/);

const math = new doc.options.MathItem(node.textContent, doc.inputJax[0],
˓→ display);

const text = document.createTextNode('');

node.parentNode.replaceChild(text, node);
math.start = {node: text, delim: '', n: 0};
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

math.end = {node: text, delim: '', n: 0};
doc.math.push(math);
}
}, '']
}
}
};

should find the scripts that MathJax version 2 normally would have created.
Note that this will replace the standard find action that looks for math delimiters with this one that looks for
the MathJax v2 script tags instead. If you want to do both the original delimiter search and the search for script
tags, then change the find: above to findScript: so that it doesn’t replace the default find action. That
way, both actions will occur.

32.4 Changes in Input and Output Jax

The input and output processors (called “jax”) are core pieces of MathJax. All three input processors from version 2
are present in version 3, but the AsciiMath processor has not been fully ported to version 3, and currently consists of
the legacy version 2 code patched onto the version 3 framework. This is larger and less efficient than a full version 3
port, which should be included in a future release.
In version 2, MathJax used preprocessors (tex2jax, mml2jax, asciimath2jax, and jsMath2jax) to locate the mathematics
in the page and prepare it for the input jax. There was really no need to have these be separate pieces, so in version
3, these have been folded into their respective input jax. That means that you don’t load them separately, and the
configuration options of the preprocessor and input jax have been combined. For example, the tex2jax and TeX
options now both occur in the tex configuration block.
MathJax version 2 included six different output jax, which had been developed over time to serve different purposes.
The original HTML-CSS output jax had the greatest browser coverage, but its output was browser-dependent, its font
detection was fragile, and it was the slowest of the output processors. The CommonHTML output jax was a more
modern remake of the HTML output that was both browser independent, and considerably faster. The SVG output jax
produced SVG images rather than HTML DOM trees, and did not require web fonts in order to display the math, so
the results could be made self-contained. MathJax version 3 includes the CommonHTML and SVG output jax, but
has dropped the older, slower HTML-CSS output format.
MathJax 2 also included an output format that produced MathML for those browsers that support it. Since only
Firefox and Safari currently implement MathML rendering (with no support in IE, Edge, or Chrome), and because
MathJax can’t control the quality or coverage of the MathML support in the browser, MathJax version 3 has dropped
the NativeMML output format for now. Should the browser situation improve in the future, it could be added again.
See MathML Support for more on this, and for an example of how to implement MathML output yourself.
There are few changes within the supported input and output jax, as described below:

32.4.1 Input Changes

There are two changes in the TeX input jax that can affect backward compatibility with existing TeX content in your
pages.
The first concerns the \color macro; in version 2, \color is a non-standard in that it takes two arguments (the
color an the math to be shown in that color), while the authentic LaTeX version is a switch that changes the color of
everything that follows it. The LaTeX-compatible one was available as an extension. In version 3, both versions are

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extensions (see ), with the LaTeX-compatible one being autoloaded when \color is first used. See the color and
colorV2 extensions for more information, and how to configure MathJax to use the original version-2 \color macro.
The other incompatibility is that the names of some extensions have been changed in version 3. For example, AM-
Scd in version 2 is now amsCd in version 3. This means that you need to use \require{amsCd} rather than
\require{AMScd} to load the CD environment. In order to support existing content that uses \require, you
can use the code in the Version 2 Compatibility Example section below.
Some other changes include:
• The autoload-all extension has been rename autoload, and is more flexible and configurable than the original.
• There are two new extensions, braket and physics.
• The configuration options for controlling the format of equation numbers have been moved to an extension; see
the tagFormat documentation for details.
• The useMathMLspacing options for the various input jax have been moved to the output jax instead, as the
mathmlSpacing option.
• The processEscapes option for the tex2jax preprocessor (now for the TeX input jax) had a default value of
false in version 2, but has default value true in version 3.
• The functionality of the MathChoice extension has been moved to the base TeX package.
• The non-standard UPDIAGONALARROW and ARROW notations have been removed from the menclose ele-
ment. These have been replaced by the standard northeastarrow notation.

32.4.2 Output Changes

There are several important changes to the output jax in version 3, and several things that aren’t yet implemented, but
will be in a future version. One such feature is linebreaking, which hasn’t been ported to version 3 yet. Another is that
only the MathJax TeX font is currently available in version 3. See Not Yet Ported to Version 3 for a list of features that
are still being converted.
In addition, there a few other changes of importance:
• There are no more image fonts. These were for use with the HTML-CSS output jax, and since that is not
included in MathJax version 3, neither are the image fonts. Since those took up a lot of disk space, this should
make locally hosted MathJax installations smaller.
• For expressions with equation numbers, the SVG output jax now has these expressions float with the size of the
container element, just like they do in HTML output. This was not the case in version 2, so this is an important
improvement for dynamic pages.
• The font used for characters that aren’t in the font used by MathJax used to be controlled by the
undefinedFont configuration parameter in version 2, but in version 3, you should use CSS to set this instead.
For example,

mjx-container mjx-utext {
font-family: my-favorite-font;
}
mjx-container svg text {
font-family: my-favorite-font;
}

would select the my-favorite-font to be used for unknown characters. The first declaration is for the
CommonHTML output, and the second for the SVG output. Once advantage of this approach is that you can
specify the CSS separately for each variant; e.g.,

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MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

mjx-container mjx-utext[variant="sans-serif"] {
font-family: my-sans-serif-font;
}
mjx-container svg text[data-variant="sans-serif"] {
font-family: my-sans-serif-font;
}

would set the font to use for characters that aren’t in the MathJax fonts and that have requested the sans-serif
variant.
• Version 3 only implements the CommonHTML and SVG output jax. The original HTML-CSS output jax has
been dropped, a has the NativeMML. The PreviewHTML and PlainSource output jax have not been ported to
version 3, though they may be in the future, if there is interest.

32.5 No Longer Applies to Version 3

A number of version 2 features have been removed as part of the redesign of MathJax version 3. These are described
below.
• In version 3, MathJax no longer updates the page in small “chunks”, but instead updates the page as a whole
(a future version may include an extension that updates in smaller pieces). This has an impact on a number of
version 2 features. First, because there is no incremental update, the MathJax message bar (usually in the lower
left corner) that indicated the progress of the typesetting is no longer needed, and is not part of MathJax version
3. Of course, the configuration options that control it have also been removed, as have the options for equation
chunking (that controlled how many equations to process between screen updates.
• Similarly, since the page updating is done all at once, there is no need for the math preview versions that were
displayed while the equations where being typeset. So the fast-preview extension and PreviewHTML output jax
have been removed, along with the configuration options for them.
• The PlainSource output jax has not be ported to version 3, though it may be in the future; it can be handled in
other ways in version 3. As mentioned above, the NativeMML has been dropped from version 3, though it is not
hard to implement a replacement if you want.
• The autobold TeX extension is no longer available in version 3, and is unlikely to be ported in the future.
• The mhchem TeX extension in version 2 came in two forms: the original extension that didn’t match the LaTeX
implementation perfectly, and a rewrite by the author of the original LaTeX package that made it compatible
with LaTeX. The legacy version could be selected by a configuration option. This is no longer possible in
version 3 (the legacy version is no longer provided).
• The handle-floats extension for HTML output has been removed, as its functionality is now part of the standard
CommonHTML output.
• The jsMath2jax preprocessor has been dropped. This was used to help bridge jsMath users to MathJax, but since
it has been a decade since MathJax was introduced, the need for jsMath conversion should be very small at this
point.
• The MatchWebFonts extension is no longer available. This was sometimes needed for HTML-CSS output, which
relied on the fonts being in place when it ran. The CommonHTML output is less susceptible to font issues, and
this is no longer necessary.
• The FontWarnings extension is no longer available, since it was for the HTML-CSS output jax, which is not part
of MathJax version 3.
• The HelpDialog extension is not included in version 3. Its functionality is incorporated into the ui/menu directly.

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• The toMathML extension is no longer provided in version 3. Instead, you can use MathJax.startup.
toMML() if you are using MathJax components, or can use the SerializedMMLVisitor object if you are
calling MathJax modules directly.
• The configuration blocks no longer allow the style option that were available in version 2. Instead, you should
use CSS stylesheets and CSS style files directly.
• Synchronization with MathJax in version 2 was handled via queues, signals, and callbacks. In version 3, these
have been replaced by ES6 promises. See Synchronizing your code with MathJax for more details.

32.6 Not Yet Ported to Version 3

As MathJax 3 is still a work in progress, not all of the version 2 features have been converted to the new code base yet,
though we hope to include them in version 3 in a future release. Among the most important ones are the following.
• Currently, automatic line breaking support is missing from version 3. This is a key feature to be included in a
future release.
• The MathJax v3 output jax currently only support one font, the MathJax TeX fonts. Improved font support is an
important goal for version 3, and this is one of the next features to be addressed. We will be rebuilding the fonts
used for MathJax, and making additional web fonts available in a future release. We also plan to make the tools
used for creating the necessary font data available for use in porting your own fonts for use with MathJax.
• The localization mechanism available in version 2 has not yet been incorporated into version 3, so currently
MathJax v3 is available only in English. This is an important feature that will be added to MathJax v3 in a
future release.
• The Safe extension has not yet been ported to version 3, but should be for a future release.
• The begingroup and mediawiki-texvc TeX extensions haven’t been ported to version 3 yet, but should be in the
future.
• The mml3 and content-mml extensions for the MathML input jax are not yet available in version 3. We do hope
to have these in a future release.
• The auto-collapse assistive extension is not yet available for version 3. If there is enough interest, that will also
be ported to the new code base.

32.7 Contextual Menu Changes

The contextual menu has been reorganized to make it easier to access some functions, and to add new ones. One major
new features is the Copy to Clipboard submenu, which mirrors the Show Math As menu, but sends the output to the
clipboard rather than displaying it on screen. This is a feature that has been requested for a long time, and we are
pleased to be able to offer it in version 3.
There is also a new Reset to defaults item that resets all the saved settings to their original values (effectively clearing
any custom settings).
The contextual menu now stores its data using the localStorage object in the browser, rather than using cookies
like version 2 does. This should be more efficient and more secure, but does mean older browsers may not be able to
save their settings from session to session (if they don’t support localStorage).
The accessibility menu options are now built into the contextual menu, so there is no longer an accessibility-menu
extension. They also have been reorganized in the menu to make it easier to access the more important features. The

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MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

auto-collapse extension has not yet been ported to version 3, however. The equation explorer has been expanded and
improved; see Accessibility Features for details.
Finally, the showMathMenu and showMathMenuMSIE options have been removed. The need for separate handling
of the menu in IE is no longer applicable, and you can control whether the menu is added or not by configuring the
renderActions array. For example
MathJax = {
options: {
renderActions: {
addMenu: [],
checkLoading: []
}
}
};

would prevent the contextual menu from being attached to the typeset mathematics.

32.8 MathJax in Node

Version 2 of MathJax was designed to work in a browser, and relied heavily on the presence of the browser win-
dow, document, DOM, and other browser-specific objects. Using MathJax on a server to pre-process mathemat-
ics (e.g., to convert a TeX string to an SVG image, for example), was not easy in version 2. The mathjax-node
<https://github.com/mathjax/mathjax-node> project made that possible, but required a completely different way of
interacting with MathJax, and was not as easy to use or as reliable as we would have liked.
Version 3 has server-side use as an important use-case to support, and so it is possible to use MathJax in a node
application in essentially the same way as in a browser, with only a few minor adjustments to the configuration to
allow for that. This should make it much easier to use MathJax on a server, as it will work the same there as for your
web-based applications. It is also possible to link to MathJax at a lower level and access the MathJax modules directly.
See the section on using MathJax in node, and the MathJax API for more information on these possibilities.

32.9 Version 2 Compatibility Example

The following example causes the \color macro to be the original one from version 2, and sets up the \require
macro to translate the old package names into the new ones. This should make MathJax v3 handle existing content
properly.
Be sure to convert your version-2 configuration to a version-3 one via the conversion tool that we provide.
<script>
MathJax = {
startup: {
//
// Mapping of old extension names to new ones
//
requireMap: {
AMSmath: 'ams',
AMSsymbols: 'ams',
AMScd: 'amsCd',
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

HTML: 'html',
noErrors: 'noerrors',
noUndefined: 'noundefined'
},
ready: function () {
//
// Replace the require command map with a new one that checks for
// renamed extensions and converts them to the new names.
//
var CommandMap = MathJax._.input.tex.SymbolMap.CommandMap;
var requireMap = MathJax.config.startup.requireMap;
var RequireLoad = MathJax._.input.tex.require.RequireConfiguration.RequireLoad;
var RequireMethods = {
Require: function (parser, name) {
var required = parser.GetArgument(name);
if (required.match(/[^_a-zA-Z0-9]/) || required === '') {
throw new TexError('BadPackageName', 'Argument for %1 is not a valid
˓→package name', name);

}
if (requireMap.hasOwnProperty(required)) {
required = requireMap[required];
}
RequireLoad(parser, required);
}
};
new CommandMap('require', {require: 'Require'}, RequireMethods);
//
// Do the usual startup
//
return MathJax.startup.defaultReady();
}
},
tex: {
autoload: {
color: [], // don't autoload the color extension
colorV2: ['color'], // do autoload the colorV2 extension
}
}
};
</script>
<script id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-chtml.js"></script>

This uses the tex-chtml.js combined component, so change this to whichever one you want.
If your website uses the MathJax API to queue typeset calls via

MathJax.Hub.Queue(['Typeset', MathJax.Hub]);

for example, these calls will need to be converted to use the MathJax 3 API. You may be able to use the following code
to patch into MathJax version 3, which provides implementations for MathJax.Hub.Typeset(), and MathJax.
Hub.Queue(). It also flags usages of MathJax.Hub.Register.StartupHook() and the other hook-
registering commands, and that you have converted your MathJax.Hub.Config() and x-mathjax-config
scripts to their version 3 counterparts (use the conversion tool).
Add the following lines right after the new CommandMap() call in the code above:

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MathJax Documentation, Release 3.0

//
// Add a replacement for MathJax.Callback command
//
MathJax.Callback = function (args) {
if (Array.isArray(args)) {
if (args.length === 1 && typeof(args[0]) === 'function') {
return args[0];
} else if (typeof(args[0]) === 'string' && args[1] instanceof Object &&
typeof(args[1][args[0]]) === 'function') {
return Function.bind.apply(args[1][args[0]], args.slice(1));
} else if (typeof(args[0]) === 'function') {
return Function.bind.apply(args[0], [window].concat(args.slice(1)));
} else if (typeof(args[1]) === 'function') {
return Function.bind.apply(args[1], [args[0]].concat(args.slice(2)));
}
} else if (typeof(args) === 'function') {
return args;
}
throw Error("Can't make callback from given data");
};
//
// Add a replacement for MathJax.Hub commands
//
MathJax.Hub = {
Queue: function () {
for (var i = 0, m = arguments.length; i < m; i++) {
var fn = MathJax.Callback(arguments[i]);
MathJax.startup.promise = MathJax.startup.promise.then(fn);
}
return MathJax.startup.promise;
},
Typeset: function (elements, callback) {
var promise = MathJax.typesetPromise(elements);
if (callback) {
promise = promise.then(callback);
}
return promise;
},
Register: {
MessageHook: function () {console.log('MessageHooks are not supported in version
˓→3')},

StartupHook: function () {console.log('StartupHooks are not supported in version

˓→3')},

LoadHook: function () {console.log('LoadHooks are not supported in version 3')}

},
Config: function () {console.log('MathJax configurations should be converted for
˓→version 3')}

};
//
// Warn about x-mathjax-config scripts
//
if (document.querySelector('script[type="text/x-mathjax-config"]')) {
throw Error('x-mathjax-config scripts should be converted to MathJax global variable
˓→');

With this you may be able to get away with using your existing version 2 code to interact with version 3. But if not,
either a more sophisticated compatibility module will be needed, or better yet, convert to the new version 3 API.

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What’s New in MathJax

33.1 What’s New in MathJax v3.0

MathJax version 3 is a complete rewrite from the ground up, with the goal of modernizing MathJax’s internal infras-
tructure, bringing it more flexibility for use with contemporary web technologies, making it easier to use with NodeJS
for pre-processing and server-side support, and making it faster to render your mathematics.

33.1.1 Improved Speed

There were a number of design goals to the version 3 rewrite. A primary one was to improve the rendering speed of
MathJax, and we feel we have accomplished that. Because the two versions operate so differently, it is difficult to make
precise comparisons, but in tests that render a complete page with several hundred expressions, we see a reduction in
rendering time of between 60 and 80 percent, depending on the browser and type of computer.

33.1.2 More Flexibility

Another goal was to make MathJax 3 more flexible for web developers using MathJax as part of a larger framework,
while still keeping it easy to use in simple settings. To that end, we have broken down the actions that MathJax takes
into smaller units than in version 2, and made it possible to call on them individually, or replace them with alternative
versions of your own. For example, the typesetting process has been broken into a number of pieces, including finding
the math in the page, compiling it into the internal format (MathML), getting metric data for the location of the math,
converting the math into the output format, inserting it into the page, adding menu event handlers, and so on. You have
control over which of these to perform, and can modify or remove the existing actions, or add new ones of your own.
See the renderActions documentation for details.

33.1.3 Synchronous Conversion

A key feature that we wanted to include in version 3 is the ability to run MathJax synchronously, and in particular,
to provide a function that can translate an input string (say a TeX expression) into an output DOM tree (say an SVG
image). This was not really possible in version 2, since its operation was inherently asynchronous at a fundamental

193
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level. With MathJax version 3, this is straight-forward, as we provide a synchronous typesetting path, both within the
page, and for individual expressions, provided you load all the components you need ahead of time. See Typesetting
and Converting Mathematics for details.

33.1.4 No Queues, Signals, Callbacks

One of the more difficult aspects of working with MathJax version 2 was having to synchronize your actions with
those of MathJax. This involved using queues, callbacks, and signals to mediate the asynchronous actions of MathJax.
Since these were not standard javascript paradigms, they caused confusion (and headaches) for many developers trying
to use MathJax. With version 3, MathJax has the option of working synchronously (as described above), but it still
allows for asynchronous operation (e.g., to allow TeX’s \require command to load extensions dynamically) if you
wish. This no longer relies on queues, callbacks, and signals, however. Instead, these actions are managed through the
ES6 promise, which is a javascript standard, and should make integrating MathJax into your own applications more
straight-forward.

33.1.5 Package Manager Support

Because MathJax version 2 used its own loading mechanism for accessing its components, and because there was
no method for combining all the pieces needed by MathJax into one file, MathJax did not work well with javascript
packaging systems like webpack. Version 3 resolves that problem, so it should interoperate better with modern web
workflows. You can make your own custom single-file builds of MathJax (see Making a Custom Build of MathJax) or
can include it as one component of a larger asset file.

33.1.6 MathJax Components

MathJax 3 still provides a loading mechanism similar to the one from version 2, however, so you can still customize
the extensions that is loads, so that you only load the ones you need (though this does require that you use MathJax
in its asynchronous mode). The various pieces of MathJax have been packaged into “components” that can be mixed
and matched as needed, and which you configure through a global MathJax variable (see Examples in a Browser).
This is how MathJax is being distributed through the various CDNs that host it. When loaded this way, MathJax will
automatically set up all the objects and functions that you need to use the components you have loaded, giving you
easy access to typesetting and conversion functions for the input and output formats you have selected. See the section
on The MathJax Components for more information. You can also create your own custom components to complement
or replace the ones provided on the CDN (see A Custom Extension for more).

33.1.7 Startup Actions

If you use any of the combined component files, MathJax will perform a number of actions during its startup process.
In particular, it will create the input and output jax, math document, DOM adaptor, and other objects that are needed in
order to perform typesetting in your document. You can access these through the MathJax.startup object, if you
need to. MathJax will also set up functions that perform typesetting for you, and conversion between the various input
and output formats that you have loaded. This should make it easy to perform the most important actions available in
MathJax. See Typesetting and Converting Mathematics for more details.

33.1.8 Server-Side MathJax

While MathJax 2 was designed for use in a web browser, an important use case that this left unaddressed is pre-
processing mathematics on a server. For version 2, we provided mathjax-node to fill this gap, but it is not as flexible
or easy to use as many would have liked. MathJax 3 resolves this problem by being designed to work with node
applications in essentially the same way as in a browser. That is, you can load MathJax components, configure them

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through the MathJax global variable, and call the same functions for typesetting and conversion as you do within a
browser. This makes parallel development for both the browser and server much easier.
Moreover, node applications can access MathJax modules directly (without the packaging used for MathJax compo-
nents). This gives you the most direct access to MathJax’s features, and the most flexibility in modifying MathJax’s
actions. See Examples of MathJax in Node for examples of how this is done.

33.1.9 ES6 and Typescript

MathJax 3 is written using ES6 modules and the Typescript language. This means the source code includes type
information (which improves the code reliability), and allows MathJax to be down-compiled to ES5 for older browsers
while still taking advantage of modern javascript programming techniques. It also means that you can produce pure
ES6 versions of MathJax (rather than ES5) if you wish; these should be smaller and faster than their ES5 equivalents,
though they will only run in modern browsers that support ES6, and so limit your readership. We may provide both
ES6 and ES5 versions on the CDN in the future.

33.1.10 New Features for Existing Components

In addition to the new structure for MathJax described above, some new features have been added to existing pieces
of MathJax.

TeX Input Extensions

There are two new TeX input extensions: braket and physics. Also, some functionality that was built into the TeX input
jax in version 2 has been moved into extensions in version 3. This includes the macros configuration option, the tag
formatting configuration options, and the require macro. The new autoload extension replaces the older autoload-all
extension, is more configurable, and is included in the TeX input components by default. There a several extensions
that are not yet ported to version 3, including the autobold, mediawiki-texvc, and the third-party extensions.

SVG Output

The SVG output for equations with labels has been improved so that the positions of the labels now react to changes
in the container width (just like they do in the HTML output formats).

Improved Expression Explorer

The interactive expression explorer has been improved in a number of ways. It now includes better heuristics for
creating the speech text for the expressions you explore, provides more keboard control of the features in play during
your exploration, adds suppot for braille output, adds support for zooming on subexpressions, and more. See the
Accessibility Features page for more details.

33.2 What’s New inEarlier Versions

33.2.1 What’s New in MathJax v2.7

MathJax v2.7 is primarily a bug-fix release with over 60 important bug fixes, in particular to the CommonHTML
output. In addition, this release adds several new features as an opt-in. The following are some of the highlights.

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Features

• Common HTML output improvements Several important bugs in the layout model have been fixed, in particular
tabular layout is now much more robust.
• Accessibility improvements. After the completion of the MathJax Accessibility Extensions, we are integrating
the opt-in for the MathJax menu into the core distribution. We are grateful to the web accessibility community
for their guidance, support, and feedback in our efforts towards making MathJax completely accessible to all
users. This allows end-users to opt into the following features via the MathJax Menu:
– Responsive Equations. An innovative responsive rendering of mathematical content through collapsing
and exploration of subexpressions.
– Universal aural Rendering. An aural rendering tool providing on-the-fly speech-text for mathematical
content and its subexpressions using various rule sets.
– Full Exploration. A fully accessible exploration tool, allowing for meaningful exploration of mathematical
content including multiple highlighting features and synchronized aural rendering.
– For more information check the release announcement and the dedicated repository at mathjax/mathjax-
a11y.
For a detailed listing please check the release milestone.

Accessibility

• mathajx-dev/#20 Add the Menu extension from the MathJax Accessibility tools to all combined configuration
files.
• #1465 CHTML and HTML-CSS output: do not add role=math by default.
• #1483 Catch IE8 errors with inserting MathML from AssistiveMML extension.
• #1513 Disable the AssistiveMML extension when the output renderer is PlainSource.

Interface

• #1463 Reset message strings for messageStyle=simple for each typeset.

• #1556 Improve menu placement.
• #1627 Add Accessibility submenu.

HTML/SVG/nativeMML display

• #1454 SVG output: Use full location URL for xlink references in SVG <use> elements.
• #1457 Common-HTML output: Fix problem with characters from Unicode Plane 1 not being mapped to the
MathJax fonts properly
• #1458 SVG output: Fix problem with container width when math is scaled.
• #1459 CommonHTML output: Improve getNode() to fix processing errors when line-breaking.
• #1460 HTML-CSS output: Adjust position of rule for square root when it is made via createRule().
• #1461 HTML-CSS output: Make sure 0 remains 0 when rounding to pixels (plus a bit).
• #1462 CommonHTML output: Bubble percentage widths up while line breaking.
• #1475 PreviewHTML: Avoid error when \overset or \underset is empty.

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• #1479 All outputs: Properly determine (shrink-wrapping) container widths.

• #1503 CommonHTML output: Handle adjusting table cell heights properly.
• #1507 SVG output: Remove invalid src attribute from <mglyph> output.
• #1510 CommonHTML output: Prevent CSS bleed-through for box-sizing.
• #1512 CommonHTML output: make <mglyph> scale image size by hand.
• #1530 All outputs: Fix problem with Safari inserting line breaks before in-line math.
• #1533 CommonHTML output: improve aligning labels with their table rows.
• #1534 CommonHTML output: ensure output stays a table-cell when focused.
• #1538 All outputs: Don’t let preview width interfere with the determination of the container width.
• #1542 CommonHTML output: improve stretching <mover> in <mtd> elements.
• #1547 HTML-CSS output: improve line breaks within fractions.
• #1549 All outputs: Improve determination of line-breaking parent element.
• #1550 CommonHTML output: Improve vector arrow positioning.
• #1552 All outputs: Handle href correctly when line breaking.
• #1574 HTML-CSS and SVG output: Use currentColor for menclose with no mathcolor.
• #1595 CommonHTML output: Properly scale elements with font-family specified.

TeX emulation

• #1455 Fix TeX.Environment() to use the correct end environment.

• #1464 Make sure resetEquationNumbers is always defined.
• #1484 Mark accented operators as not having movable limits.
• #1485 Allow line breaks within TeXAtom elements
• #1508 Surround \middle with OPEN and CLOSE TeXAtoms to match TeX spacing
• #1509 Make delimiters (in particular arrows) symmetric for \left and \right.
• #1514 Don’t unwrap rows when creating fenced elements.
• #1523 Don’t copy environment into array environments.
• #1537 mhchem: add config parameter to select mhchem v3.0.
• #1596 Prevent \require{mhchem} to override one already loaded.
• #1551 Allow <wbr> in TeX code.
• #1565 Handle \+SPACE in macro definitions.
• #1569 Treat control sequences as a unit when matching a macro template.
• #1587 Make sure trimSpaces() doesn’t remove tailing space in \+SPACE.
• #1602 Handle \ref properly when there is a <base> tag.

Asciimath

• asciimath/f649ba4 Add newsymbol command for adding a new symbol object

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MathML

• #1505 Handle rowlines="" and rowlines=" " like rowlines="none".

• #1511 Don’t convert attribute to boolean unless the default is a boolean.
• #1526 Make minus in <mn> produce U+2212 rather than U+002D.
• #1567 Fix spacing for initial fraction in exponent position.

Fonts

• #1521 STIX fonts: Make left arrow use combining left arrow for accents.
• #1092 STIX fonts: Make U+222B (integral) stretchy.
• #1154 STIX fonts: Remap | to variant form (with descender) and map variant to original form.
• #1175 Use U+007C and U+2016 for delimiters rather than U+2223 and U+2225.
• #1421 MathJax TeX fonts: Fix SVG font data for stretchy characters.
• #1418 Alias U+2206 to U+0394 and remove incorrect U+2206 from SVG font files.
• #1187 Make height and depth of minus match that of plus (needed for TeX-layout super/subscript algorithm to
work properly), and adjust for that when it is used as an extender in stretchy characters.
• #1546 MathJax TeX fonts: Add stretchy data for U+20D7.

Localization

• #1604 Updated locales thanks to the contributors at Translatewiki.net; activate locale for Zazaki.

APIs

• #1504 Make getJaxForMath() work even during chunking.

• #1522 Add Third Party Extensions Repository to the Ajax paths as [Contrib].
• #1525 Allow MathJax root to be configured.

Misc.

• #1456 Prevent removal of DOM elements while MathJax is running from stopping processing, or to leaving
duplicate math in place.
• #1524 Prevent pre-processors from adding duplicate preview elements.
• #1554 Safe extension: Add filtering of CSS styles like padding, margin.
• #1590 Set previews to have display:none.
• #1591 Change rev= to V= in cache breaking code.

33.2.2 What’s New in MathJax v2.6

MathJax v2.6 includes a number of new features, as well a more than 30 important bug fixes. The following are some
of the highlights.

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Features

• Improved CommonHTML output. The CommonHTML output now provides the same layout quality and
MathML support as the HTML-CSS and SVG output. It is on average 40% faster than the other outputs and the
markup it produces are identical on all browsers and thus can also be pre-generated on the server via MathJax-
node. The fast preview mechanism introduced in v2.5 continues to develop as a separate output as PreviewHTML
and the fast-preview extension.
• Accessibility improvements. We thank the AT community for their guidance, support, and feedback in our efforts
towards making MathJax completely accessible to all users.
– Screenreader compatibility. The new AssistiveMML extension enables compatibility with most
MathML-capable screenreaders by inserting visually-hidden MathML alongside MathJax’s visual output.
See screenreader support for details on the expected behavior as well as background on the limitations
due to lack of web standards and browser/OS technology.
– Accesssible UI. We have improved the accessibility of the MathJax menu to enable assistive technology
users to easily access its features, cf. MathJax UI.
• PlainSource Output. The new PlainSource output will revert the rendering back to the input format; in the case
of MathML, the output will prefer TeX and AsciiMath from <annotation-xml> elements. This helps with
accessibility and copy&paste of document fragments.
• Semi-slim MathJax repository for bower. You can now use bower install components/MathJax to
install a fork of MathJax without PNG fonts. Many thanks to @minrk from the IPython/Jupyter team and to
the team at components!
• MathJax via npm. You can now use npm install mathjax to install a copy of MathJax without PNG
fonts.
• Deprecated: MMLorHTML extension. We have deprecated the MMLorHTML extension. For a detailed guide
on configuring MathJax to choose different outputs on different browsers, please see Automatic Selection of the
Output Processor for more information.
Numerous bugs and issues have also been resolved; for a detailed listing please check the release milestone.

Interface

• #938 Expose MathML for accessibility; cf. screenreader support.

• #939 Make MathJax contextual menu properly accessible.
• #1088 MathJax Menu: drop PNG images in menu.
• #1210 Update MathZoom.js: global border-box support. Special thanks to @CalebKester
• #1273 Improve handling of hash in URL.

HTML/SVG/nativeMML display

• #1095 HTML-CSS output: prevent collapse of table borders.

• #596 SVG Output: Fix overlapping equation labels in SVG output
• #994 SVG Output: Change default blacker setting to 1.
• #995 SVG output: fix baseline alignment issues.
• #995 SVG output: fix failure to scale all but the first glyph in a fraction when useFontCache=false.
• #1035 PreviewHTML output: fix fractions formatting in WebKit and IE.

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• #1233 SVG output: make maligngroup and malignmark produce no output.

• #1282 HTML-CSS output: reduce “bumpiness” of focus outline.
• #1314 HTML-CSS output: prevent clipping of extremely long strings.
• #1316 SVG output: preserve non-breaking space in mtext elements.
• #1332 HTML-CSS output: fix width calculations for mrows with embellished operators that could stretch but
don’t actually.

TeX emulation

• #567 Add macro for overparen and underparen to provide stretchy arcs above/below
• #956 Simplify the mhchem extension to use multiscripts, cf. #1072.
• #1028 Fix spacing in \alignedat.
• #1194 Fix problem where automatic numbering affects \binom and friends.
• #1199 Fix problem with dot delimiter not being recognized as a delimiter.
• #1224 Handle braces properly in text mode when looking for matching math delimiters.
• #1225 Fix \operatorname not ignoring \limits that follow immediately after.
• #1229 Fix wrong spacing of trailing binary operators.
• #1272 Fix spacing of \eqnarray environment.
• #1295 Handle scriptlevel set on arrays via an mstyle node (affects \smallmatrix).
• #1312 Improve heuristics for adding U+2061 (invisible function application).

Asciimath

• asciimath/#31 Add support for overparen, underparen to produce mover and munder constructs.
• asciimath/#35 Add support for bowtie, ltimes and rtimes.
• asciimath/#40 Improve parsing of brackets within brackets.
• asciimath/#43 Improve detection of non-matrices.

MathML

• #1072 Right-justify prescripts in mmultiscript elements (after clarification in MathML 3 editors’ draft); cf.
#956.
• #1089 Fix toMathML from changing <maligngroup> to <malign>
• #1188 Fix mmultiscripts with odd number of post-scripts not rendering correctly.
• #1231 Fix <math> element not being treated as an <mrow> for embellished operator spacing.
• #1233 Make <maligngroup> and <malignmark> be self-closing in MathML input.
• #1238 Fix Content MathML extension not handling namespace prefixes.
• #1257 Improve mml3.js: better RTL support in HTML-CSS; improved IE/Edge compatibility.
• #1323 Content-mathml extension: improve handling of empty Presentation MathML nodes.

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Fonts

• #928 Add data for stretchy U+2322 (FROWN), U+2323 (SMILE), and also U+2312 (ARC) to be aliases
for the top and bottom parentheses. This enables stretchy constructions; cf. also #567.
• #1211 Fix web font detection for Gyre-Pagella etc. in IE10+.
• #1251 Fix primes in STIX-web font being too small in SVG output.

Localization

• #1248 Updated locales thanks to the contributors at Translatewiki.net; activate locales for Bulgarian, Sicilian,
Lithuanian, and Laki.

APIs

• #1216 Add debugging tips to console output.

Misc.

• #1074 Fix regression in v2.5 regarding MathPlayer on IE9.

• #1036 Improve CDN rollover behavior.
• #1085 Fix detection of Windows Phone mobile IE.
• #1155 Work around websites using user agent filtering
• #1173 Avoid warning message in debug mode.
• #1208 Fix CHTML preview from setting chunking parameters even when disabled.
• #1214 semi-slim official MathJax repository for bower; use bower install components/MathJax
for a copy without PNG fonts. Special thanks to @minrk from the IPython/Jupyter team and to the team at
components!
• #1254 Improve examples in /test: add viewport meta tags, improve dynamic examples.
• #1328 Add package.json for publishing on npm, excluding PNG fonts.

33.2.3 What’s New in MathJax v2.5

MathJax v2.5 includes a number of new features, as well a more than 70 important bug fixes. The following are some
of the highlights.

Features

• Speed improvements. The HTML-CSS output performance was improved by 30-40% (depending on content
complexity, with higher gains in more complex content such as very long documents).
• New output for fast preview. The new CommonHTML output provides a rough but 10x-faster rendering. The
CHTML-preview extension will use this fast output as a preview mode for HTML-CSS or SVG output.
• Improved Content MathML support. Content MathML is now fully supported via a new extension, in particular
this allows customization of the conversion process.

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• Improved elementary math support The experimental support for elementary math elements has been signifi-
cantly improved special thanks to David Carlisle.
• NodeJS compatibility. Enable the implementation of a NodeJS API (released as MathJax-node).
Numerous display bugs, line-breaking problems, and interface issues have been resolved; for a detailed listing please
check the release milestone.

Interface

• #834 Fix incorrect line-width when zooming which can cause line-breaking problems.
• #918 Fix zoom box size in NativeMML output.
• #835 Fix zoom for equations extending beyond their bounding box.
• #893 Fix outdated ARIA values for HTML-CSS and SVG output.
• #860, #502 Preserve RDFa, microdata, aria labels, and other attributes in HTML-CSS and SVG output.
• #935 Escape special characters in TeX annotations.
• #912 Fix missing mstyle attributes in toMathML output.
• #971 Fix lost attributes when toMathML is restarted.

Line-breaking

• #949 Fix processing error due to empty elements.

HTML-CSS/SVG/nativeMML display

• #863 Fix broken MathML preview in MathML pre-processor.

• #891 Fix deprecated regexp affecting mtable alignment.
• #323 Improve MathPlayer compatibility on Internet Explorer 10+.
• #826 Scale content in fallback fonts.
• #898 Fix invalid SVG output when using fallback characters.
• #800 Fix misplaced background color for stretched mphantom elements in SVG output.
• #490 Fix \overline issues in combination with text-style limits.
• #829 Implement \delimitershortfall, \delimiterfactor.
• #775 Fix lost text content in SVG output.
• #917 Fix cases of incorrect bounding boxes in HTML-CSS output.
• #807 Fix clipping of table columns in HTML-CSS output.
• #804 Fix cases of uneven subscripts.
• #944 Fix rendering error when scaling-all-math of labeled equations.
• #930 Fix SVG output failure when <math> element has inline styles with border or padding.
• #931 Fix baseline alignment in Safari 6.2/7.1/8.0.
• #937 Fix incorrect width in MathJax font data affecting underlining.

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• #966 Fix SVG output overlapping when using prefix notation.

• #993 Add workaround for Native MathML in Gecko to re-enable mlabeledtr etc.
• #1002 Enable SVG output to inherit surrounding text color.

TeX emulation

• #881 Allow \newenvironment to process optional parameters.

• #889 remove extra space around some parenthesis constructs.
• #856 Recognize comma as decimal delimiter in units.
• #877 Fix bug related to multiple accent having different width.
• #832 Fix multline environment not being centered in HTML-CSS output.
• #776 Fix stretchy delimiters of binom and choose.
• #900 Fix \buildrel getting TeX class ORD instead of REL.
• #890 Enable px as dimension in \\[...].
• #901 Allow \limits in more cases and add errors for some cases of multiple subscripts.
• #903 Allow \hfill to set alignment in matrices and arrays (for old fashioned TeX layout).
• #902 Convert \eqalignno and \leqalignno into mlabeledtr.
• #906 Allow comma separated parameters in \mmlToken.
• #913 Allow attributes in \mmlToken whose defaults are false or blank.
• #972 Fix autoload of the color extension.
• #375 Add \{, \}, and \\ to macros working within \text{} etc.
• #969 Fix incorrect spacing with some \frac constructs.
• #982 Fix incorrect spacing in aligned environments.
• #1013 Fix processing error caused by ' in commutative diagrams using AMScd.js.
• #1005 Add wikipedia-texvc.js extension.

Asciimath

• #851 Prevent leading space in quote from causing processing errors.

• #431 Fix handling of special characters in exponents.
• #741 Add underbrace macro.
• #857 Update AsciiMathML to 2.2; changes include improve entity handling, add triangle macro, map ast to
asterisk, allow input of row vectors, allow lamda, switch phi/varphi mapping, add underbrace macro, handle
empty nodes better, add vector norm macro, improve @ macro.

MathML Handling

• #847 Fix line-breaks in annotation elements.

• #805 Prevent empty annotation elements from causing math processing errors.

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• #769 Update indentshift implementation to meet clarified MathML specification.

• #768 Fix processing of percentage values for indenshift.
• #839 Update inheritance of displaystyle in mtable to meet clarified MathML specification.
• #695 Allow Content MathML converion to be customized.
• #964 Move experimental support for elementary math and RTL to its own extension.

Fonts

• #845 Fix webfont bug in Safari 7.

• #950 Fix webfont bug in IE 11.

Localization

• #979 Updated locales thanks to Translatewiki.net; activate locales for Scots and Southern Balochi.

APIs

• #873 Combine array of elements when typesetting.

• #693 Add API to allow listeners to be cleared.

Misc.

• #870 Add Composer package information.

• #872 Add small delay between input and output phase to prevent performance degredation.
• #1016 Fix bug related to <script> elements with namespace prefix, e.g., in xHTML.

33.2.4 What’s New in MathJax v2.4

MathJax v2.4 is primarily a bug fix release. Over 80 display bugs, line-breaking problems, and interface issues have
been resolved; for a detailed listing please check the release milestone. The following are some of the highlights.

Security

• #256 Enable Content Security Policy compatibility.

Interface

• #240 prevent two identical uses of \tag to cause identical element id.
• #348 fix Show Math as window crashing in IE8.
• #559 remove user cookie configuration.
• #821 resolve cookie-related error in sandboxed iframes on Chrome.
• #623 fix localization on IE6–8.

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• #685 fix MathMenu and MathZoom extensions loading when showMathMenu set to false.
• #734 compress menu PNGs.
• #814 add TeX/Asciimath as annotation-xml to MathML output.

Line-breaking

• #617 add linebreaking support for mmultiscript elements.

• #687 fix forced line breaking aligning badly.
• #707 fix ignored line breaks between two mtext elements.

HTML-CSS/SVG/nativeMML display

• #387 fix missing styling for merror in SVG output.

• #391 fix linebreaking within fractions in SVG output.
• #423, #460, #749, #824 Zoom improvements: fix zoom box overflow in mobile Safari, fix zoom box for widths
in px, fix zoom box overlay in Chrome.
• #470 fix AMScd rendering in native MathML output.
• #473 override text-ident of enclosing paragraph.
• #476 improve big /Downarrows.
• #580 prevent CSS from overriding MathJax’s em/ex detection.
• #619 fix: vertical stretching arrows in table cells can cause extra space between rows.
• #699 fix table column spacing in NativeMathML output on Firefox.
• #701 fix clipping of stretched delimiters in HTML-CSS output.
• #703 fix math axis not scaled in script sizes.
• #715 fix hat ^ too large with local STIX fonts in HTML-CSS.
• #744 improve root symbol rendering in ever-changing but always buggy Chrome.
• #770 add support for dotted borders to SVG output.
• #820 fix integral overlapping with superscript using STIX fonts.
• #813 remove some redundant fixes for Native MML on Firefox 29+.

TeX emulation

• #367 prevent \mmltoken from creating annotation elements.

• #377 improve &nbsp; handling.
• #389 fix operating spacing in \split and \multiline environments.
• #477, #459 add \textsf and \texttt macros and enable mtextInheritFont for them.
• #547 fix misalignment in nested fractions in HTML-CSS and SVG output.
• #624 fix AMScd on IE6–7.
• #632 fix \Big not accepting delimiters in braces

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• #667 fix loop in bbox.

• #691 enable multiple \label in multiline environments like align, eqnarray, and gather.
• #719 empty array lines should get correct height.
• #739 fix \operatorname* and \DeclareMathOperator*.
• #746 fix spacing for \left ... \right.
• #793 allow unmatched groups in \begin \end‘ substitutions.
• #794 fix spacing for \bmod.

Asciimath

• #353 add option for TeX-like \phi and \varphii behavior.

• #743 add mmlSpacing option and set to true.
• #747 fix processing error with invisible grouping.

MathML Handling

• #328 remove _moz-*-attributes and improve MathML processing in Firefox.

• #460 fix default value of mo@symmetric.
• #478 make mfenced element equivalent to its expanded form
• #561 implement menclose notation phaseorangle.
• #578 fix quote attributes for ms elements.
• #614 handle nested math elements better.
• #684 fix handling of double primes in superscripts.
• #691, #692, update Content MathML extension: fix IE11, plus with leading negative number.
• #763 fix mglyph elements rendering too small.

Fonts

• #501 add workaround for broken Fedora STIX fonts configuration.

• #517 reset min/max width for MathJax font test.
• #576 improve font matching.
• #615 check validity of font names.
• #681 fix MathJax font test breaking responsive layout.
• #711 detect new webfonts when locally installed.
• #697 fix bold-italic for new webfonts.

Localization

• #753 update locales from translatewiki.net; add Vietnamese, Asturia, Polish, Catalan, Czech, Kannada locales.
• #777 fix menu orientation for RTL languages.

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Misc.

• #586 add all input processors to default.js.

• #658 fix IE 11 recognized as Firefox.
• #730 ignore rendering targets that have been removed from document.
• #735 work around webfont bug in Chrome 32+.
• #738 improve workaround for fixed position bug in old IE versions.
• #737 add third-party path variable (for centralized custom extension hosting).

33.2.5 What’s New in MathJax v2.3

MathJax v2.3 includes a number of new features, as well a more than 30 important bug fixes.

Features:

• New webfonts: MathJax v2.3 adds new webfonts for STIX, Asana Math, Neo Euler, Gyre Pagella,
Gyre Termes, and Latin Modern.
• Localization improvements: MathJax has been accepted into TranslateWiki.net. Thanks to the TWN community
we could add 12 complete and over 20 partial translations.
• MathML improvements: MathJax’s “Show Math as” menu will now expose the MathML annotation features.
There are also two new preview options for the MathML input mode: mathml (now the default), which uses
the original MathML as a preview, and altimage, which uses the <math> element’s altimg (if any) for the
preview.
• Miscellaneous improvements: A new extension MatchWebFonts improves the interaction with the surround-
ing content when that uses a webfont. A new configuration method allows configurations to be specified using
a regular JavaScript variable window.MathJax.
• MathJax is now available as a Bower package thanks to community contributions.

TeX input:

• Prevent the TeX pre-processor from rendering TeX in MathML annotation-xml elements. (Issue #484)
• Fix sizing issue in cases environment (Issue #485)

Fonts:

• Fix block-letter capital I (U+2111) appearing as J in MathJax font (Issue #555)

MathML:

• Improved workarounds for MathML output on WebKit (Issue #482)

• Handle empty multiscript, mlabeledtr, and other nodes in Native MathML output (Issue #486)
• Replace non-standard MJX-arrow class by new menclose notation (Issue #481)
• Fix incorrect widths in Firefox MathML output (Issue #558)

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• Fix display math not being centered in XHTML (Issue #650)

• Fix problem when LaTeX code appears in annotation node (Issue #484)

HTML-CSS/SVG output

• Fix MathJax not rendering in Chrome when sessionStorage is disabled (Issue #584)
• Fix \mathchoice error with linebreaking in SVG output (Issue #604)
• Fix poor linebreaking of “flat” MathML with unmatched parentheses (Issue #523)

Interface:

• Fix Double-Click zoom trigger (Issue #590)

Miscellaneous:

• Localization: improved fallbacks for IETF tags (Issue #492)

• Localization: support RTL in messages (Issue #627)
• Improve PNG compression (Issue #44)

33.2.6 What’s New in MathJax v2.2

MathJax v2.2 includes a number of new features, as well a more than 40 important bug fixes.

Features:

• Localization of MathJax user interface. (German and French translations currently available in addition to
English.)
• Commutative diagrams via the AMScd extension.
• New Safe-mode extension that allows you to restrict potentially dangerous features of MathJax when it is used
in a shared environment (e.g., href to javascript, styles and classes, etc.)
• Improve MathML rendering for mfenced and mlabeldtr elements in browsers that don’t support them well.
• Experimental Content MathML support.

TeX input:

• Avoid potential infinite loops in \mathchoice constructs. (Issue #373)

• Add error message when an evironment closes with unbalanced braces. (Issue #454)
• Allow spaces in the RGB, rgb, and greyscale color specifications. (Issue #446)
• Process \$ in \text arguements. (ssue #349)
• Preserve spaces within \verb arguments. (Issue #381)
• Make \smallfrown and \smallsmile come from the variant font so they have the correct size. (Issue
#436)

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• Make the input TeX jax generate mrow plus mo elements rather than mfenced elements (for better compatibility
with native MathML implementations).
• Make \big and its relatives use script or scriptscript fonts (although size is still absolute, as it is in TeX) so that
it balances the text weight in scripts. (Issue #350)
• Convert true and false attributes to booleans in \mmlToken. (Issue #451)

AsciiMath:

• Rename AsciiMath config option from decimal to decimalsign. (Issue #384)

Fonts:

• Add Greek Delta to SVG fonts. (Issue #347)

• Fix monospace space character to be the same width as the other monospace characters. (Issue #380)
• Better handling of unknown or invalid values for mathvariant or values not supported by generic fonts.

MathML:

• Handle empty child nodes better.

• Improved MathML rendering for mfenced and mlabeldtr elements.
• Ignore linebreak attribute on mspace when dimensional attributes are set. (Issue #388)
• Implement rowspacing/columnspacing for mtable in native MathML output in Firefox using cell
padding.

HTML-CSS/SVG output

• Allow \color to override link color in SVG output. (Issue #427)

• Add min-width to displayed equations with labels so that they cause their containers to have non-zero width
(like when they are in a table cell or an absolutlye positioned element). (Issue #428)
• Fix a processing error with elements that contain hyperlinks. (Issue #364)
• Try to isolate MathJax from CSS transitions. (Issue #449)
• Go back to using em’s (rounded to nearest pixel) for Chrome. Rounding makes the placement work more
reliably, while still being in relative units. (Issue #443)
• Prevent error when math contains characters outside of the MathJax fonts. (Issue #441)
• Make final math size be in relative units so that it prints even if print media has a different font size. (Issue #386)
• Don’t scale line thickness for menclose elements (so lines won’t disapear in scripts). (Issue #414)
• Fix fontdata.js to allow it to be included in combined configuration files. (Issue #413)
• Makes math-based tooltips be spaced properly when rendered. (Issue #412)
• Fix Math Processing Error when &ApplyFunction; is used without preceeding content. (Issue #410)
• Fix a problem using an empty table as a super- or subscript. (Issue #392)
• Handle the case where selection in maction is invalid or out of range. (Issue #365)

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• Add a pixel extra around the SVG output to accommodate antialiasing pixels. (Issue #383)
• Fix Math Processing Error for msubsup/msub/msup elements.
• Limit the number of repetition to build stretchy chars in HTML-CSS. (Issue #366)
• Fix Math Processing Error in mmultiscripts/menclose. (Issue 362)

Interface:

• Make zoom work properly with expressions that have full width (e.g., tagged equations).
• Handle zooming when it is inside a scrollable element when it is not the main body element. (Issue #435)
• Update math processing errors to include original format and actual error message in the “Show Math As” menu.
(Issue #450)
• Add a Help dialog box (rather than link to mathjax.org).
• Remove the v1.0 configuration warning. (Issue #445)
• Trap errors while saving cookies (and go on silently). (Issue #374)
• Fix typo in IE warning message. (Issue #397)
• Use UA string sniffing for identifying Firefox and handle detecting mobile versions better.
• Make MathML source show non-BMP characters properly. (Issue #361)
• Make tool tips appear above zoom boxes. (Issue #351)

Miscellaneous:

• Allow preview for preprocessors to be just a plain string (rather than requiring [string]).
• Remap back-tick to back-quote. (Issue #402)
• Handle script tags in HTML.Element() so they work in IE. (Issue #342)
• Add the MathJax_Preview class to the ignoreClass list so that tex2jax and asciimath2jax won’t
process previews accidentally. (Issue #378)
• Fix processing errors with various table and menclose attributes. (Issue #367)
• Use hasOwnProperty() when checking file specification objects (prevents problems when Object.
prototype has been modified). (Issue #352)

33.2.7 What’s New in MathJax v2.1

MathJax v2.1 is primarily a bug-fix release. Numerous display bugs, line-breaking problems, and interface issues have
been resolved. The following lists indicate the majority of the bugs that have been fixed for this release.

Interface

• Make NativeMML output properly handle iOS double-tap-and-hold, and issue warning message when switching
to NativeMML output.
• Use scrollIntoView to handle positionToHash rather than setting the document location to prevent
pages from refreshing after MathJax finishes processing the math.

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• Handle positioning to a hash URL when the link is to an element within SVG output.
• Make href’s work in SVG mode in all browsers.
• Fix problem with opening the “Show Math As” window in WebKit (affected Chrome 18, and Safari 5.1.7).
• Use MathJax message area rather than window status line for maction with actiontype='statusline'
to avoid security restrictions in some browsers.
• Fix issue where zoom box for math that has been wrapped to the beginning of a line would be positioned at the
end of the previous line.
• Fix a problem where IE would try to typset the page before it was completely available, causing it to not typeset
all the math on the page (or in some cases any of the math).
• Allow decimal scale values in the dialog for setting the scale.
• Fix SVG output so that setting the scale will rescale the existing mathematics.
• Add close button to About box and don’t make clicking box close it (only clicking button).
• Make About box show ‘woff or otf’ when otf fonts are used (since both are requested).
• Have output jax properly skip math when the input jax has had an internal failure and so didn’t produce any
element jax.
• Produce MathJax.Hub signal when [Math Processing Error] is generated.

Line-breaking

• Fix problem with SVG output disappearing during line breaks when equation numbers are also present.
• Fix problem with potential infinite loop when an <mspace> is an embellished operator that causes a linebreak
to occur.
• Allow line breaks within the base of <msubsup> to work so that the super and subscripts stay with the last line
of the base.
• Fix <mfenced> so that when it contains a line break the delimiters and separators are not lost.
• Allow line breaks at delimiters and separators in <mfenced> elements.
• Fix issue with line breaking where some lines were going over the maximum width.
• Fix problem with line breaking inside <semantics> elements.
• Fix problem with line breaking where the incorrect width was being used to determine breakpoint penalties, so
some long lines were not being broken.

HTML-CSS/SVG display

• Fix several Chrome alignment and sizing issues, including problems with horizontal lines at the tops of roots,
fraction bars being too long, etc.
• Resolve a problem with how much space is reserved for math equations when a minimum font size is set in the
browser.
• Force final math span to be remeasured so that we are sure the container is the right size.
• Fix alignment problem in <msubsup>.
• Fix processing error when rowalign has a bad value.

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• Fix a vertical placement problem with stretched elements in mtables in HTML-CSS, and improve performace
for placeing the extension characters.
• Handle spacing for U+2061 (function apply) better.
• Better handling of primes and other pseudo scripts in HTML-CSS and SVG output.
• Fixed a problem with <mmultiscripts> in SVG mode that caused processing error messages.
• Fix misplaced \vec arrows in Opera and IE.
• Make <mi> with more than one letter have texClass OP rather than ORD in certain cases so it will space as
a function.
• Make HTML snippet handler accept a string as contents, even if not enclosed in braces.
• Fix spacing for functions that have powers (e.g., \sin^2 x).
• Fix problem with SVG handling of \liminf and \limsup where the second half of the function name was
dropped.
• Fixed a problem where HTML-CSS and SVG output could leave partial equations in the DOM when the equa-
tion processing was interrupted to load a file.
• Fix problems with <mtable>, <ms>, and <mmultiscripts> which weren’t handling styles.
• Make column widths and row heights take minsize into account in <mtable>.
• Fix typo in handle-floats.js that caused it to not compile.
• Fix problem in HTML-CSS output with <msubsup> when super- or subscript has explicit style.

TeX emulation

• Allow negative dimensions for \\[] but clip to 0 since this isn’t really allowed in MathML.
• Fixed problem where \ with whitespace followed by [ would incorrectly be interpretted as \[dimen].
• Make jsMath2jax run before other preprocessors so that tex2jax won’t grab environments from inside the
jsMath spans and divs before jsMath2jax sees them.
• Fix issue with \vec not producing the correct character for \vec{\mathbf{B}} and similar constructs.
• Combine multiple primes into single unicode characters.
• Updated the unicode characters used for some accents and a few other characters to more appropriate choices.
See issues #116, #119, and #216 in the MathJax issue tracker on GitHub.
• Remove unwanted ‘em’ from eqnarray columnwidth values.
• Make eqnarray do equation numbering when numbering is enabled.
• Make vertical stretchy characters stand on the baseline, and improve spacing of some stretchy chars.
• Make mtextFontInherit use the style and weight indicated in the math, so that \textbf and \textit
will work properly.
• Add \textcolor macro to the color extension.
• Added RGB color model to the color extension.
• Automatically load the AMSmath extension when needed by the mhchem extension.
• Add <<=> arrow to mhchecm extension
• Fix alignment of prescripts in mhchem to properly right-justify the scripts.

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• Expose the CE object in the mhchem extension.

• Make autoload-all skip extensions that are already loaded, and not redefine user-defined macros.
• Fix most extensions to not overwrite user defined macros when the extension is loaded.
• Ignore \label{} with no label.
• Make \injlim and friends produce single <mi> elements for thier names rather than one for each letter.
• Handle primes followed by superscript as real TeX does in TeX input jax.
• Handle a few more negations (e.g., of arrows) to produce the proper Unicode points for these.
• Don’t produce a processing error when \limits is used without a preceding operator.

MathML Handling

• Prevent align attribute on <mtable> from applying to <mover>/<munder>/<munderover> elements.

• Ignore _moz-math-* attributes in MathML input so they don’t appear in MathML output.
• Prevent duplicate xmlns attributes in “Show Math As -> MathML”.
• Fixed a problem in MathML output where dimensions given to <mpadded> with leading +’s could lose the
plus and become absolute rather than relative.
• Fix setTeXclass for TeXatom so that it handles the spacing for relations correctly.
• Add more CSS to isolate NativeMML output from page.
• Handle setup of MathPlayer better for IE10, and avoid some IE10 bugs in setting the document namespace for
MathML.

Fonts

• Fix a problem where bold-script didn’t work properly in STIX fonts.

• Work around Chrome bug with MathJax web fonts that affects some combining characters.
• Remove dependencies of TeX->MathML conversion on the choice of fonts (TeX versus STIX).
• For stretchy characters that don’t have a single-character version in the MathJax fonts, make sure they are
properly sized when not stretched or stretched to a small size.
• Fix an error with U+u005E (^) which caused it to show as a plus when used as a stretchy accent.
• Fix a problem with greek letters in STIX font producing the wrong letter (an offset was off by one).
• Handle more characters in sans-serif-italic and bold-italic STIX fonts.

33.2.8 What’s New in MathJax v2.0

MathJax version 2.0 includes many new and improved features, including much better speeds in Internet Explorer, a
new AsciiMath input processor, a new SVG output processor, support for additional LaTeX commands, and many bug
fixes, to name just a few of the changes.

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Major speed improvement for HTML-CSS output, particularly in IE

The HTML-CSS output processing was redesigned to avoid the page reflows that were the main source of the speed
problem in Internet Explorer 8 and 9. For test pages having between 20 and 50 typeset expressions, we see an 80%
reduction in output processing time for IE8, a 50% reduction for IE9, and between 15% and 25% reduction for most
other browsers over the corresponding v1.1a times. Since the processing time in v1.1a grows non-linearly in IE, you
should see even larger savings for pages with more equations when using v2.0. Forcing IE7 emulation mode is no
longer necessary (and indeed is no longer recommended).

Reduced flickering during typsetting

In the past, each expression was displayed as soon as it was typeset, which caused a lot of visual flickering as MathJax
processed the page. In v2.0, the output is processed in blocks so that typeset expressions are revealed in groups. This
reduces the visual distraction, and also speeds up the processing. The number of equations in a block can be controlled
through the EqnChunk parameter in the HTML-CSS or SVG block of your configuration. See the configuration
options for HTML-CSS and configuration options for SVG pages for details.
If the page URL includes a hash reference (a link to a particular location within the page), MathJax v2.0 will jump
to that location after the page has finished typsetting. (Since the size of the page may have changed due to the
mathematical typsetting, that location may no longer be visible on screen, so MathJax moves there when it is done
with the initial typesetting.) You can control this behavior with the positionToHash parameter in the main section
of your configuration. See the core configuration options page for details.

Automatic equation numbering of TeX formulas

The TeX input jax now can be configured to add equation numbers (though the default is not to number equations so
that existing pages will not change their appearance). This is controlled through the equationNumbers section
of the TeX block of your configuration (see the equation numbering section for details). You can request that the
numbering follow the AMS-style numbering of environments, or you can request that every displayed equation be
numbered. There are now \label, \ref, and \eqref commands to make it easier to link to particular equations
within the document.

Automatic line breaking of long displayed equations

MathJax now implements the MathML3 specification for automatic line breaking of displayed equations in its HTML-
CSS output. This is disabled by default, but can be enabled via the linebreaks section of the HTML-CSS or SVG
block of your configuration (see the automatic line breaking section for details). Note that automatic line breaking
only applies to displayed equations, not in-line equations, unless they are themselves longer than a line. The algorithm
uses the nesting depth, the type of operator, the size of spaces, and other factors to decide on the breakpoints, but it
does not know the meaning of the mathematics, and may not choose the optimal breakpoints. We will continue to
work on the algorithm as we gain information from its actual use in the field.

New AsciiMath input jax and SVG output jax

MathJax currently processes math in either TeX and LaTeX format, or MathML notation; version 2.0 augments that to
include AsciiMath notation (see the ASCIIMathML home page for details on this format). This is a notation that is
easier for students to use than TeX, and has been requested by the user community. See the AsciiMath support page
for details.
In addition to the HTML-CSS and Native MathML output available in v1.1, MathJax v2.0 includes an SVG-based
output jax. This should prove to be more reliable than the HTML-CSS output, as it avoids some CSS, web-font, and
printing issues that the HTML-CSS output suffers from, and it currently has no browser-dependent code. The SVG

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mode even works in some ebook readers (like Apple iBooks and Calibre). See the output formats documentation for
details.

New combined configuration files

Pre-defined configuration files that include the AsciiMath and SVG processors are now available with MathJax v2.0.
These include AM_HTMLorMML, TeX-AMS-MML_SVG, and TeX-MML-AM_HTMLorMML. See the common config-
urations section for details.

MathJax contextual menu now available on mobile devices

MathJax v2.0 provides access to its contextual menu in mobile devices that are based on the WebKit (Safari) and
Gecko (Firefox) engines. For Mobile Firefox, the menu is accessed by a tap-and-hold on any expression rendered by
MathJax (this is Mobile Firefox’s standard method of triggering a contextual menu). In Mobile Safari, use a double-
tap-and-hold (you may need to zoom in a bit to be able to accomplish this). This is the first step toward providing a
better interface for mobile devices.

Improved support for screen readers

Some issues surrounding the use of screen readers and their interaction with MathPlayer have been resolved in MathJax
v2.0. In particular, there are additional menu items that allow the user finer control over some aspects of MathJax’s
interface that were interfering with some screen readers’ ability to properly identify the mathematics. Several stability
issues with MathPlayer have also been addressed. In Internet Explorer when MathPlayer is installed, there is now a
new contextual menu item to allow you to specify what events are handled by MathJax and what should be handled
by MathPlayer. This gives you finer control over MathPlayer’s interaction with some screen readers.

Many new TeX additions and enhancements

• New mhchem chemistry extension (adds \ce, \cf, and \cee macros)
• New cancel extension (adds \cancel, \bcancel, \xcancel, and \cancelto macros)
• New extpfeil extension (adds more stretchy arrows)
• New color extension (makes \color work as a switch, as in LaTeX). Adds \definecolor, other color
models, LaTeX named colors, \colorbox, \fcolorbox, etc.
• New begingroup extension to allow macro definitions to be localized. Adds \begingroup and \endgroup
for isolating macro declarations, and defines \let, \renewenvironment, \global, and \gdef.
• New enclose extension to give TeX access to <menclose> elements. Adds
\enclose{type}[attributes]{math} macro.
• New action extension to give TeX access to <maction> elements. Adds \mathtip{math}{tip},
\texttip{math}{tip}, and \toggle{math1}{math2}...\endtoggle macros.
• New \mmToken{type}[attributes]{text} macro for producing <mo>, <mi>, <mtext>, and other
token MathML elements directly.
• New \bbox[color;attributes]{math} macro to add background color, padding, borders, etc.
• New \middle macro for stretchy delimiters between \left and \right.
• New \label, \ref, and \eqref macros for numbered equations.
• Better implementation of \not so it produces proper MathML when possible.

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• Better implementation of \dots that selects \ldots or \cdots depending on the context.
• Better implementation of \cases that automatically uses \text on the second entry in each row.
• Safer implementation of \require that only allows loading from extensions directory.
• Allow \newcommand to provide a default parameter.
• Allow \\ to take an optional argument that specifies additional space between lines.
• Allow \\ to be used anywhere (to force a line break), not just in arrays.
• Allow optional alignment parameter for array, aligned, and gathered environments.
See the TeX support page for details on these extensions and macros.

Font enhancements

• Work around for the OS X Lion STIX font problem.

• Support for STIX-1.1 fonts (detection of which version you have, and use data appropriate for that).
• New WOFF versions of the web fonts (smaller, so faster to download).
• Data for more stretchy characters in HTML-CSS output.
• Add support for Unicode planes 1 through 10 (not just the Math Alphabet block) in HTML-CSS output.
• Increased timeout for web fonts (since it was switching to image fonts too often, especially for mobile devices).
• Only switch to image fonts if the first web font fails to load (if we can access one, assume we can access them
all).
• Allow <mtext> elements to use the page font rather than MathJax fonts (optionally). This is controlled by the
mtextFontInerhit configuration parameter for HTML-CSS and SVG output jax.
• Provide better control over the font used for characters that are not in the MathJax fonts.
• Allow Firefox to use web-based fonts when a local URL uses MathJax from the CDN (in the past it would force
image fonts when that was not necessary).

Interface improvements

• The MathJax contextual menu has been reorganized to make it easier to get the source view, and to control the
parameters for MathPlayer in IE.
• The MathJax contextual menu is available in mobile devices (see description above).
• Warning messages are issued if you switch renderers to one that is inappropriate for your browser.
• MathJax now starts processing the page on the DOMContentLoaded event rather than the page onload
event (this allows the mathematics to appear sooner).
• Native MathML output is now scaled to better match the surrounding font (like it is for HTML-CSS output).
• Better CSS styling for NativeMML output in Firefox in order to handle \cal and other fonts.
• MathML output now (optionally) includes class names to help mark special situations generated by the TeX
input jax. (This lets the MathML from the Show Source menu item better reproduce the original TeX output.)
• MathJax now loads the menu and zoom code (if they haven’t been loaded already) after the initial typesetting
has occured so that they will be available immediately when a user needs those features, but do not delay the
initial typesetting of the mathematics.

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• For the tex2jax preprocessor, the processClass can now be used to override the skipTags to force a tag
that is usually skipped to have its contents be processed.
• The noErrors and noUndefined extensions can now be disabled via a configuration option (since they are in-
cluded in many of the combined configuration files). See the noErrors and noUndefined sections of the TeX
support page for more information.
• There is a new MathJax.Hub.setRenderer() function that can be used to switch the current renderer.
See the MathJax Hub API documentation for details.
• A user-defined macros is no longer overridden if an extension is loaded that redefines that macro.
• Improved web-font detection reliability.

Important changes from previous versions

• The default renderer for Firefox has been changed from NativeMML to HTML-CSS (in those configurations that
choose between the two). The only browser that defaults to NativeMML is now IE with MathPlayer installed.
You can configure this to your liking using the MMLorHTML configuration options.
• NativeMML output will now be selected in IE9 when MathPlayer is present (since IE9 was released the same
day as MathJax v1.1a, and there had been problems with IE9 beta releases, we weren’t sure if MathPlayer would
work with the official release, and so did not select NativeMML by default.)
• The performance improvements in IE8 and IE9 now make it unnecessary to use a <meta> tag to force IE7
emulation mode. In fact IE9 in IE9 standards mode now runs faster than IE9 in IE7 standards mode, and IE8 in
IE8 standards mode is comparable to IE8 in IE7 standards mode. We now recommend that you use

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">

to obtain the highest emulation mode available in IE, which will be the fastest one for MathJax 2.0.
• The tex2jax preprocessor now balances braces when looking for the closing math delimiter. That allows expres-
sions like

$y = x^2 \hbox{ when $x > 2$}$

to be properly parsed as a single math expression rather than two separate ones with unbalanced braces. The old
behavior can be obtained by setting balanceBraces to false in the tex2jax block of your configuration.
(See the tex2jax configuration options for details.)
• If you are hosting your own copy of MathJax on your server, and that copy is being used from pages in a different
domain, you will have set up the access control paramters for the font directory to allow Firefox to access the
font files properly. Since MathJax 2.0 includes fonts in WOFF format, you will need to include woff in you
access control declaration for the fonts. E.g., use

<FilesMatch "\.(ttf|otf|eot|woff)$">
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
</IfModule>
</FilesMatch>

in the .htaccess` file for the ``Mathjax/fonts directory if you are using the Apache web
server. See Notes about shared installations for details.
• The \cases macro now properly places the second column in text mode not math mode. In the past, one
needed to use \text in the second column to achieve the proper results; pages that did this will still work
properly in v2.0. Pages that took advantage of the math mode in the second column will need to be adjusted.

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• The \dots macro now produces \ldots or \cdots depending on the context (in the past, \dots always
produced \ldots).
• A one pixel padding has been added above and below HTML-CSS and SVG output so that math on successive
lines of a paragraph won’t bump into each other.
• There is a new MathPlayer submenu of the Math Settings menu in the MathJax contextual menu that allows
the user to control what events are passed on to MathPlayer. This allows better control for those using assistive
devices like screen readers. When menu events are being passed on to MathPlayer, the MathJax menu can be
obtained by ALT-clicking on a typeset expression (so the user can still access MathJax’s other features).
• In order to improve stability with IE when MathPlayer is installed, MathJax now adds the namespace and object
bindings that are needed for MathPlayer at the time that Mathjax is first loaded, rather than waiting for the
NativeMML output jax to be loaded. Since this is before the configuration information has been obtained, this
will happen regardless of whether the NativeMML output jax is requested. This means that IE may ask the user
to allow MathPlayer to be used, and may show the MathPlayer splash dialog even when MathPlayer is not in the
end used by MathJax. Note that this setup can only be performed if MathJax is loaded explicitly as part of the
initial web page; if it is injected into the page later by adding a <script> tag to the page dynamically, then
MathPlayer will be set up when the NativeMML jax is loaded as in the past, and some stability issues may occur
if events are passed to MathPlayer.
• The MathJax typesetting is now started on DOMContentLoaded rather than at the page onload event, when
possible, so that means MathJax may start typesetting the page earlier than in the past. This should speed up
typesetting one pages with lots of images or side-bar content, for example.
• MathJax now attempts to determine whether the page’s onload event had already occurred, and if it has,
it does not try to wait for the DOMContentLoaded or onload event before doing its initial typeset pass.
This means that it is no longer necessary to call MathJax.Hub.Startup.onload() by hand if you insert
MathJax into the page dynamically (e.g., from a GreaseMonkey script).
• If the page URL includes a hash reference (a link to a particular location within the page), MathJax v2.0 will
jump to that location after the page has finished typsetting. Since the size of the page may have changed due to
the mathematical typsetting, that location may no longer be visible on screen, so MathJax moves there when it
is done with the initial typesetting. You can control this behavior with the positionToHash parameter in the
main section of your configuration (see core configuration options).
• In the event that MathJax is not able to load the configuration file you have specified in the script tag that
loads MathJax.js via config=filename, it will no longer issue the warning message about a missing
configuration. The configuration process changed in v1.1, and that message was to help page maintainers
update their configurations, but it turns out that for users with slow network connections, MathJax could time
out waiting for the configuration file and would issue the warning message in that case, even though the page
included the proper configuration. That should no longer occur in MathJax v2.0.

Other enhancements

• Use prioritized lists of callbacks for StartupHooks, MessageHooks, LoadHooks, PreProcessors, and pre- and
post-filters on the input jax.
• Updated operator dictionary to correspond to current W3C version.
• Improved browser detection for Gecko and WebKit browsers.
• Make prefilters and postfilters for all input jax, and make them into hook lists rather than a single hook.
• Use <mi> rather than <mo> for \sin, \cos, and other such functions, for \mathop{\rm...} and
\operatorname.
• Add &ApplyFunction; after \mathop{} and other macros that are functions (e.g., \sin).

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• The MathJax_Preview style has been moved from HTML-CSS/jax.js to MathJax.js, since it is com-
mon to all output.
• The autobold extension now uses \boldsymbol rather than \bf so that it will affect more characters.
• Make units of mu’s be relative to the scriptlevel (as they are supposed to be).
• Reorganized the event-handling code to make it more modular and reduce redundancy in the different output
jax.
• Modified CSS in NativeMML output for Firefox to use local copies of the web fonts, if they are available.
• Error messages now have the MathJax contextual menu.
• Better handling of some characters not in the web fonts (remap to locations where they exist, when possible).
• Better choice of accent characters in some cases.
• Better handling of pseudo-scripts (like primes).
• Better sizing of characters introduced by \unicode{}, or otherwise outside of the fonts known to MathJax.
• Provide a new extension to handle tagged equations better in HTML-CSS output when there are floating elements
that might reduce the area available to displayed equations. (See the HTML-CSS extensions section of the output
formats documentation for detais.)
• Use a text font for \it rather than the math italics, so spacing is better.
• Handle italic correction better in HTML-CSS output
• Handle href attributes better, especially when on <math> elements.
• Allow \sqrt\frac{}{} without producing an error.

Other bug fixes

• MathPlayer setup changed to prevent crashes.

• Moved remapping of <mo> contents to the output jax so that the original contents aren’t changed.
• Don’t combine mathvariant with fontstyle or fontweight (as per the MathML specification).
• Isolate non-standard attributes on MathML elements so that they don’t interfere with the inner workings of
MathJax.
• Properly handle width of border and padding in merrors in HTML-CSS output.
• Properly handle lower-case Greek better.
• Process weight and style of unknown characters properly.
• Fixed spacing problems with \cong in MathJax web fonts .
• Choose better sizes for \widehat and \widetilde
• Fixed problem with detecting em/ex sizes when uses in mobile devices with small screen widths.
• Fixed MathML output when dimensions of mu’s are used in TeX input.
• Better handling of table borders from TeX.
• Fixed some problems with table widths and heights, and spacing.
• Better handling of colored backgrounds in HTML-CSS output.
• Handle border and padding CSS styles better in HTML-CSS output.
• Fixed multline environment to put tags on bottom row when TagSide is set to right.

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• Force reflow after equations are typeset so that some rendering problems in tables are corrected in Firefox and
WebKit browsers.
• Fixed a number of bugs with the size of zoom boxes and the size of their content.
• Have equations with tags zoom into a full-width zoom box to accommodate the tag.
• Fixed positioning problem with zoom boxes in NativeMML mode.
• Don’t allow mouse events on zoomed math.
• Fixed MathJax.Hub.getJaxFor() and MathJax.Hub.isJax() to properly handle elements that are
part of an output jax’s output (in particular, you can find the element jax from any DOM element in the output).
• Fixed a number of font anomalies (problems in the data files).
• Fixed problem where <mspace> with a background color would not always overlay previous items.
• Fixed a problem with colored <mspace> elements being too tall in IE/quirks mode.
• Fixed problem where <mtable> with equalrows="true" would not produce equal height rows.
• Allow <mpadded> background color to be specified exactly (i.e., without the 1px padding) when one of its
dimensions is given explicitly (or there is no content).
• Avoiding flicker problem with hover zoom trigger in Firefox.
• Fix \unicode bug with font names that include spaces.
• Remove internal multiple spaces in token elements as per the MathML specification.
• Work around HTML5 removing namespaces, so that xmlns:xlink becomes xlink with no namespace,
which confuses the XML parsers.
• Fix MathJax.Message.Set() and MathJax.Message.Clear() so that a delay of 0 is properly han-
dled.
• Produce better MathML for \bmod, \mod, and \pmod.
• Don’t allow Safari/Windows to use STIX fonts since it can’t access characters in Plane1 (the mathematical
alphabets).
• Fix \thickapprox to use the correct glyph in HTML-CSS output with MathJax web fonts.
• Make style attributes work on <mstyle> elements.
• Better handling of border and padding on MathML elements in HTML-CSS output.
• Fixed error with size of \: space.
• Allow delimiter of . on \genfrac (it was accidentally rejected).
• Handle AMSmath control sequences with stars better (\cs{*} no longer counts as \cs*).
• Fixed wrong character number in stretchy data for U+221A.
• Fixed <annotation-xml> to use the proper scaling in HTML-CSS output.
• Fixed a problem with combining characters when they are used as accents.
• Fixed a problem in Firefox with \mathchoice when the contents have negative width.
• TeX input jax no longer incorrectly combines <mo> elements that have different variants, styles, classes, or id’s.
• Fixed the scriptlevel when <munderover> has base with movablelimits="true" in non-display
mode.
• Fixed typo in implementation of SimpleSUPER.

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• Fixed typo in self-closing flag for <mprescript> tag.

• Prevent infinite loop if one of the jax fails to load (due to failure to compile or timeout waiting for it to load).
• Fixed a whitespace issue in token elements with IE/quirks mode in the MathML input jax.
• Make sure height is above depth when making spaces and rules in HTML-CSS and SVG output.
• Fixed HTML-CSS tooltip to be work properly when a restart occurs within the tooltip.
• Fixed problem with size of colored backgrounds on <mo> in some circumstances in HTML-CSS output.
• Make \ulcorner, etc. use more approprate unicode positions, and remap those positions to the locations in
the MathJax web fonts.

Some technical changes

• Break the processing phase into two separate phases to do input processing separately from output processing
(they used to be interleaved). This makes it easier to implement forward references for the \ref macro.
• Make Font Preference menu honor the imageFont setting.
• Changed the name of the preview filter commands to previewFilter in all preprocessors.
• Make ^ and _ be stretchy even though that isn’t in the W3C dictionary.
• Fixed HTML-CSS output problem when a multi-character token element has characters taken from multiple
fonts.
• Force message text to be black in FontWarnings and configuration warnings.
• Added Find() and IndexOf() commands to menus to locate menu items.
• Added menu signals for post/unpost and activation of menu items.
• Added signals for typesetting of unknown characters.
• Added signals for zoom/unzoom.
• Added More signals for error conditions.
• Allow preferences to select MathML output for Safari with late enough version.
• Improved About MathJax box.
• Have tex2jax handle empty delimiter arrays and don’t scan page if there is nothing to look for.
• Make delay following a processing message configurable and lengthen it to make browser more responsive
during typesetting.
• Make thin rules be in pixels to try to improve results in IE (disappearing division lines).
• Mark all output elements as isMathJax, so it can be used to identify what elements are part of mathematical
output.
• Force MathZoom and MathMenu to wait for the Begin Styles message before inserting their styles so when
they are included in the combined files, the author can still configure them.
• Add default id’s to the jax base object classes.
• Mark top-level math element as having a texError when it is one (to make it easier to recognize).
• Have Update() method ask ElementJax to determine if it needs updating (which in turn asks the associated
input jax).
• Make Remove() work for just clearing output (without detaching) if desired.

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• Have ElementJax store input and output jax ID’s rather than pointers (to help avoid circular references for
cleanup purposes).
• Move input/output jax and preprocessor registries from Hub.config to Hub itself (they are not user config-
urable through Hub.Config, and so even though they are configurations, they don’t belong there).
• Make sure embelished large ops are type OP not ORD to get spacing right.
• Added MathJax.HTML.getScript() to get the contents of a script (needed since it works differently in
different browsers).
• Move code that prevents numbers from being treated as a unit for super- and subscripts to the super- and subscript
routine in the TeX input jax (prevents making changes to \text{}, \hbox{}, \href{}, etc.).
• Make mml2jax work better with IE namespaces (IE9 no longer seems to list the xmlns entries on the <html>
element).

33.2.9 What’s New in MathJax v1.1

MathJax version 1.1 includes a number of important improvements and enhancements over version 1.0. We have
worked hard to fix bugs, improve support for browsers and mobile devices, process TeX and MathML better, and
increase MathJax’s performance.
In addition to these changes, MathJax.org now offers MathJax as a network service. Instead of having to install
MathJax on your own server, you can link to our content delivery network (CDN) to get fast access to up-to-date and
past versions of MathJax. See Loading MathJax from the CDN for more details.
The following sections outline the changes in v1.1:

Optimization

• Combined configuration files that load all the needed files in one piece rather than loading them individually.
This simplifies configuration and speeds up typesetting of the mathematics on the page.
• Improved responsiveness to mouse events during typesetting.
• Parallel downloading of files needed by MathJax, for faster startup times.
• Shorter timeout for web fonts, so if they can’t be downloaded, you don’t have to wait so long.
• Rollover to image fonts if a web font fails to load (so you don’t have to wait for every font to fail.
• The MathJax files are now packed only with yuicompressor rather than a custom compressor. The CDN serves
gzipped versions, which end up being smaller than the gzipped custom-packed files.
• Improved rendering speed in IE by removing position:relative from the style for mathematics.
• Improved rendering speed for most browsers by isolating the mathematics from the page during typesetting
(avoids full page reflows).

Enhancements

• Allow the input and output jax configuration blocks to specify extensions to be loaded when the jax is loaded
(this avoids needing to load them up front, so they don’t have to be loaded on pages that don’t include mathe-
matics, for example).
• Better handling of background color from style attributes.
• Ability to pass configuration parameters via script URL.

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• Support HTML5 compliant configuration syntax.

• Switch the Git repository from storing the fonts in fonts.zip to storing the fonts/ directory directly.
• Improved About box.
• Added a minimum scaling factor (so math won’t get too small).

TeX Support

• Added support for \href, \style, \class, \cssId.

• Avoid recursive macro definitions and other resource consumption possibilities.
• Fix for \underline bug.
• Fix for bug with \fbox.
• Fix height problem with \raise and \lower.
• Fix problem with \over used inside array entries.
• Fix problem with nesting of math delimiters inside text-mode material.
• Fix single digit super- and subscripts followed by punctuation.
• Make sure movablelimits is off for \underline and related macros.
• Fix problem with dimensions given with pc units.

MathML Support

• Fix &lt; and &amp; being translated too early.

• Handle self-closing tags in HTML files better.
• Combine adjacent relational operators in <mo> tags.
• Fix entity name problems.
• Better support for MathML namespaces.
• Properly handle comments within MathML in IE.
• Properly consider <mspace> and <mtext> as space-like.
• Improved support for <maction> with embellished operators.

Other Bug Fixes

• Fixed CSS bleed through with zoom and other situations.

• Fixed problems with showMathMenuMSIE when set to false.
• Replaced illegal prefix characters in cookie name.
• Improved placement of surd for square roots and n-th roots.
• Fixed layer obscuring math from MathPlayer for screen readers.
• Newlines in CDATA comments are now handled properly.
• Resolved conflict between jsMath2jax and tex2jax both processing the same equation.
• Fixed problem with class="tex2jax_ignore" affecting the processing of sibling elements.

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Browser Support

Android
• Added detection and configuration for Android browser.
• Allow use of OTF web fonts in Android 2.2.
Blackberry
• MathJax now works with OS version 6.
Chrome
• Use OTF web fonts rather than SVG fonts for version 4 and above.
Firefox
• Added Firefox 4 detection and configuration.
• Fix for extra line-break bug when displayed equations are in preformatted text.
• Updated fonts so that FF 3.6.13 and above can read them.
Internet Explorer
• Changes for compatibility with IE9.
• Fix for IE8 incorrectly parsing MathML.
• Fix for IE8 namespace problem.
• Fix for null parentNode problem.
• Fix for outerHTML not quoting values of attributes.
iPhone/iPad
• Added support for OTF web fonts in iOS4.2.
Nokia
• MathJax now works with Symbian3 .
Opera
• Prevent Opera from using STIX fonts unless explicitly requested via the font menu (since Opera can’t display
many of the characters).
• Fixed bad em-size detection in 10.61.
• Fixed a problem with the About dialog in Opera 11.
Safari
• Use OTF web fonts for Safari/PC.
WebKit
• Better version detection.

33.2.10 Migrating from MathJax v1.0 to v1.1

MathJax v1.1 fixes a number of bugs in v1.0, and improves support for new versions of browsers and mobile devices.
It includes changes to increase its performance, and to make it more compliant with HTML5. It has more flexible
configuration options, and the ability to load configuration files that combine multiple files into a single one to increase

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loading speed when MathJax starts up. Finally, MathJax.org now offers MathJax as a web service through a distributed
“cloud” server.
This document describes the changes you may need to make to your MathJax configurations in order to take advantage
of these improvements.

Configuration Changes

The main changes that you will see as a page author are in the way that MathJax can be loaded and configured. If you
have been using in-line configuration by putting a MathJax.Hub.Config() call in the body of the <script>
tag that loads MathJax, then your site should work unchanged with version 1.1 of MathJax. You may wish to consider
moving to the new HTML5-compliant method of configuring MathJax, however, which uses a separate <script>
tag to specify the configuration. That tag should come before the one that loads Mathjax.js, and should have
type="text/x-mathjax-config" rather than type="text/javascript". For example,

<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js">

MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX","output/HTML-CSS"],
extensions: ["tex2jax.js"]
});
</script>

would become

<script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX","output/HTML-CSS"],
extensions: ["tex2jax.js"]
});
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js"></script>

instead. This will make sure your pages pass HTML5 validation. Be sure that you put the configuration block before
the script that loads MathJax. See Loading and Configuring MathJax for more details.
If your page simply loads MathJax.js and relies on config/MathJax.js, then you will need to modify your
<script> tag in order to use MathJax v1.1. This is because MathJax no longer loads a default configuration file;
you are required to explicitly specify the configuration file if you use one. Furthermore, the name of the config/
MathJax.js file was a source of confusion, so it has been renamed config/default.js instead. Thus, if you
used

<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js"></script>

in the past, you should replace it with

<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js?config=default"></script>

instead. If you don’t do this, you will receive a warning message that directs you to a page that explains how to update
your script tags to use the new configuration format.

Combined Configurations

New with version 1.1 is the ability to combine several files into a single configuration file, and to load that via the same
script that loads MathJax. This should make configuring MathJax easier, and also helps to speed up the initial loading
of MathJax’s components, since only one file needs to be downloaded.

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MathJax comes with four pre-built configurations, and our hope is that one of these will suit your needs. They are
described in more detail in the Using a Configuration File section. To load one, add ?config=filename (where
filename is the name of the configuration file without the .js) to the URL that loads MathJax.js. For example

<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js">

MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX","output/CommonHTML"],
extensions: ["tex2jax.js","AMSmath.js","AMSsymbols.js"]
});
</script>

could be replaced by the single line

<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS_CHTML"></

˓→script>

In this way, you don’t have to include the in-line configuration, and all the needed files will be downloaded when
MathJax starts up. For complete details about the contents of the combined configuration files, see the Common
Configurations section.
If you want to use a pre-defined configuration file, but want to modify some of the configuration parameters, you can
use both a text/x-mathjax-config block and a config=filename parameter in combination. For example,

<script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
MathJax.Hub.Config({
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [ ['$','$'], ['\\(','\\)'] ],
processEscapes: true
}
});
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS_CHTML"></
˓→script>

would load the TeX-AMS_HTML configuration file, but would reconfigure the inline math delimiters to include $...$
in addition to \(...\), and would set the processEscapes parameter to true.

Loading MathJax from a CDN

The MathJax installation is fairly substantial (due to the large number of images needed for the image fonts), and
so you may not want to (or be able to) store MathJax on your own server. Keeping MathJax up to date can also be
a maintenance problem, and you might prefer to let others handle that for you. In either case, using the MathJax
distributed network service may be the best way for you to obtain MathJax. That way you can be sure you are using
an up-to-date version of MathJax, and that the server will be fast and reliable.
See Loading MathJax from a CDN for more information.

Change in default TeX delimiters

In addition to the fact that MathJax v1.1 no longer loads a default configuration file, there is a second configuration
change that could affect your pages. The config/MathJax.js file properly configured the tex2jax preprocessor to
use only \(...\) and not $...$ for in-line math delimiters, but the tex2jax preprocessor itself incorrectly defaulted
to including $...$ as in-line math delimiters. The result was that if you used in-line configuration to specify the
tex2jax preprocessor, single-dollar delimiters were enabled by default, while if you used file-based configuration,
they weren’t.

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This inconsistency was an error, and the correct behavior was supposed to have the single-dollar delimiters disabled
in both cases. This is now true in v1.1 of MathJax. This means that if you used in-line configuration to specify the
tex2jax preprocessor, you will need to change your configuration to explicitly enable the single-dollar delimiters if you
want to use them.
For example, if you had
<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js">
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX","output/HTML-CSS"],
extensions: ["tex2jax.js"]
});
</script>

and you want to use single-dollar delimiters for in-line math, then you should replace this with
<script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX","output/HTML-CSS"],
extensions: ["tex2jax.js"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [ ['$','$'], ['\\(','\\)'] ],
processEscapes: true
}
});
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js"></script>

The same technique can be used in conjunction with a combined configuration file. For example
<script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
MathJax.Hub.Config({
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [ ['$','$'], ['\\(','\\)'] ],
processEscapes: true
}
});
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/MathJax/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS_CHTML"></
˓→script>

will load the pre-defined TeX-AMS_CHTML configuration, but will modify the settings to allow $...$ delimiters,
and to process \$ to produce dollar signs within the text of the page.

New Distribution Location

Version 1.0 of MathJax was distributed through SourceForge, but the development of MathJax has switched to GitHub,
which is now the primary location for MathJax source code and distributions. The SourceForge repository will no
longer be actively maintained (and hasn’t been since November 2010), and so you will not be able to obtain updates
through svn if you checked out MathJax from there.
You may be able to switch to using the MathJax CDN (see above) rather than hosting your own copy of MathJax,
and avoid the problem of updates all together. If you must install your own copy, however, you should follow the
instructions at Installing and Testing MathJax, using either git or svn as described to obtain your copy from GitHub.
This will allow you to keep your copy of MathJax up to date as development continues.
We apologize for the inconvenience of having to switch distributions, but the git-to-svn bridge we tried to implement
to keep both copies in synch turned out to be unreliable, and so the SourceForge distribution was retired in favor of

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the GitHub site.

33.2.11 Converting to MathJax from jsMath

MathJax is the successor to the popular jsMath package for rendering mathematics in web pages. Like jsMath, MathJax
works by locating and processing the mathematics within the webpage once it has been loaded in the browser by a user
viewing your web pages. If you are using jsMath with its tex2math preprocessor, then switching to MathJax should
be easy, and is simply a matter of configuring MathJax appropriately. See the section on Loading and Configuring
MathJax for details.
On the other hand, if you are using jsMath’s <span class="math">...</span> and <div
class="math">...</div> tags to mark the mathematics in your document, then you should use Math-
Jax’s jsMath2jax preprocessor when you switch to MathJax. To do this, include "jsMath2jax.js" in the
extensions array of your configuration, with the jax array set to include "input/TeX". For example,

<script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
MathJax.Hub.Config({
extensions: ["jsMath2jax.js"]
});
</script>
<script
src="https://example.com/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS_CHTML">
</script>

would load the jsMath2jax preprocessor, along with a configuration file that processes TeX input and produces
HTML-with-CSS output.
There are a few configuration options for jsMath2jax, which you can find in the config/default.js file, or
in the jsMath configuration options section.
If you are generating your jsMath documents programmatically, it would be better to convert from generating
the jsMath <span> and <div> tags to producing the corresponding MathJax <script> tags. You would use
<script type="math/tex"> in place of <span class="math"> and <script type="math/tex;
mode=display"> in place of <div class="math">. See the section on How mathematics is stored in the
page for more details.

The links above may refer to sections of the documentation for version 2.7 that are no longer present in the documen-
tation for version 3. In such cases, the links have been removed. The original versions are available in the version 2
documentation pages.

MathJax is a Sponsored Project of NumFOCUS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity in the United States. NumFOCUS
provides MathJax with fiscal, legal, and administrative support to help ensure the health and sustainability of the
project. Visit numfocus.org for more information.

This version of the documentation was built Jul 27, 2020.

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