mathscape—Combining Mathematica and TEX

Millions of mathematical formulas are typeset annually. Most of the numbers we see in print are produced by computer. So are the indexes and catalogs issued by database publishers. Charts and diagrams and other products of computer graphics have replaced manually drafted copy. But most of the formulas in mathematics, engineering and science publications are still derived and coded by hand. The TeXForm function in Release 2 of Mathematica [1], and some more extensive resources in Release 3 [2], provide a bridge between symbolic computation and computer composition. The author’s mathscape system was designed to strengthen the bridge. Written in Release 2 of Mathematica, it is in ongoing use by the author, and it has produced several hundred typeset pages of heavily mathematical material already. It subsumes work reported previously as bilo and forTeX [3]. It produces a document from a control file containing: • statements that Mathematica evaluates for inclusion in the output, • formatting information and other statements to be executed silently, flagged by the # symbol, • text coded in LTEX, with each record flagged with an *, or in a text environment between # beginText and # endText markers. Then, within a Mathematica session, the mathscape package is loaded, and the mathscape statement autorecord[controlFileName]: • makes Mathematica read the control file and convert its contents to the LATEX coded representation of the document that is being created, • invokes LATEX to convert this to a dvi file, • invokes a preview program, and • prints the typeset product if requested. In this way, the document can be crafted interactively. Graphics can be incorporated with ease. The system was started to meet some major needs of research publication. The production of problem sets and worked examples for teaching has been addressed extensively. So has the production of tables of formulas for reference. A tutorial introduction to mathscape and a systematic review are available [4]. The production of the following boxed output illustrates the control file conventions.