I think the big problem with rendering LaTeX client side is that everyone uses different style files, fonts, etc. The options are to either include them all on the page (which would make it difficult for me to upload a LaTeX file, since I'd have to include half a dozen auxiliary resources). It seems like this problem has been solved adequately well by just having a PDF file (which embeds fonts, and doesn't need style files).
Even if browsers could render LaTeX clientside, I still feel like there would be no real advantage to PDF. Since there is no standard way to embed LaTeX markup in HTML, you would just have to link to a .tex file which the browser could display as a separate page, just like it displays a PDF.
I almost feel like XHTML would be a good fit for this problem. We could develop a XML schema for which a simple bijection to LaTeX markup exists. Then, since XHTML supports using multiple namespaces in a single document, we could include any LaTeX markup natively within an XHTML web page (by prefacing LaTeX markup elements with the proper namespace). You would still have to deal with fonts/styles, but I think that's a much easier problem in this sort of a framework.
Is there a plugin for Firefox or something else that can convert math TeX to vector (non-raster) displays in the browser? Wikipedia/Mediawiki (and lots of other systems) converts equations to PNG, but they get pixelated when they're scaled up, they don't print well, and they don't look beautiful like a TeX PDF does.
In my math courses recently, I've come across lots of things that don't have any good explanations on the Web. I'd like to write a bit about them on my site to help other people studying the same things, and I'd like the equations to look really nice.
Even if browsers could render LaTeX clientside, I still feel like there would be no real advantage to PDF. Since there is no standard way to embed LaTeX markup in HTML, you would just have to link to a .tex file which the browser could display as a separate page, just like it displays a PDF.
I almost feel like XHTML would be a good fit for this problem. We could develop a XML schema for which a simple bijection to LaTeX markup exists. Then, since XHTML supports using multiple namespaces in a single document, we could include any LaTeX markup natively within an XHTML web page (by prefacing LaTeX markup elements with the proper namespace). You would still have to deal with fonts/styles, but I think that's a much easier problem in this sort of a framework.