Fedora Core 1 -- Mozilla Firefox -- MathML Font Installation

Note

I wrote this page when getting Firefox to handle MathML required some extra work. Since version 1.5, Firefox comes with native support for MathML (and SVG), so this page is probably out of date. I.e., probably the easiest way to get Firefox to render MathML is to upgrade to version 1.5 or higher, and this page is obsolete. (See the Mozilla MathML Project Page for more information.)

But in case I'm wrong and it still is necessary to install fonts for MathML, I'll keep this page up until I know for sure.

April 15, 2006

Background

Firefox calls on the X (X Windows) server to display its window. The X server calls on the X Font Server (xfs) to locate available fonts. To be usable, fonts must be installed on the computer and xfs must be configured so that it can find them.

Simple Installation

Download these font files:
1. texcm-ttf.zip
2. Mathematica MathFonts_TrueType.exe (for Mathematica 4.1, not 4.2)
If you have Adobe Reader installed, you may be able to download and run this script to finish the job: mathml-fonts-install. (No promises!) Run the script in the directory where you downloaded the fonts. If you are root, it installs the fonts in /usr/share/fonts; otherwise it installs them in ~/.fonts (in your home directory).
Otherwise, proceed as follows:
1. Unpack both font files using unzip:
```
$ unzip texcm-ttf.zip
$ unzip -d Mathematica-4.1 MathFonts_TrueType.exe
```
  (This does work, in spite of the ".exe" extension.)
2. You now have two new directories: "texcm-ttf", containing 4 font files, and "Mathematica-4.1", containing 20 font files. If you are the root user, move the font files to (somewhere in) one of the following directories,
```
/usr/share/fonts
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/OTF
```
  Otherwise, move them to (somewhere in) ~/.fonts.
  Example:
```
# mv texcm-ttf /usr/share/fonts
# mv Mathematica-4.1 /usr/share/fonts/
```
3. You may need the Adobe Symbol font also. Install Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader), if not already installed. Copy its Symbol font into one of the font directories listed above.
  Example:
```
# mkdir /usr/share/fonts/Adobe
# cp /usr/local/acrobat-4.05/Resource/Font/Symbol /usr/share/fonts/Adobe
```
4. Restart the X Font Server.
  1. If you are root:
```
# service xfs restart
```
  2. If you are not root: reboot the computer.
Test the Firefox browser by viewing some of the test pages listed below. (Restart Firefox if it is already running.)

Variations

You can move the font files to another directory, for example, /usr/local/share/fonts, but you need to edit the xfs configuration file. For example:

# mkdir /usr/local/share/fonts
# mkdir /usr/local/share/fonts/TTF
# mv texcm-ttf /usr/local/share/fonts/TTF
# mv Mathematica-4.1 /usr/local/share/fonts/TTF
# mkdir /usr/local/share/fonts/Type1
# mkdir /usr/local/share/fonts/Type1/Adobe
# cp /usr/local/acrobat-4.05/Resource/Font/Symbol /usr/local/share/fonts/Type1/Adobe

Then edit /etc/fonts/local.conf and insert the following:

  <!-- Fonts installed for MathML in Firefox -->
  <dir>/usr/local/share/fonts</dir>

Further Information

Fonts for MathML-Enabled Mozilla [Firefox]
W3C Math Home: Browsers that can do MathML

Testing

Here are some pages you can view to test the rendering of MathML:

Simple Presentation Examples
MathML Demos (hosted by Mozilla)
Hermes at Work with links to sample papers in physics
MathML Character Tables
Comprehensive Mathematics for Computer Scientists

The author welcomes comments.
Last content revision: April 15, 2006
Last style revision: April 15, 2006