Editing a MathPage Document in a Web Editor

The information in this document applies to:

Issue

Many users, after creating documents in Microsoft Word and creating Web pages from them using MathPage would like to edit them in an HTML editor, such as Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe Dreamweaver, or Netscape Composer.

Reason

Because Web pages created with MathPage contain complex JavaScript and other coding, we recommend that you make changes to a MathPage document by modifying the original Word document and generating the page again using the Export To MathPage command in the MathType menu of Microsoft Word. However, there may be cases where you wish to make a minor change, the source document is unavailable, or some other reason that requires you to use a Web editor. This notice describes how to safely edit a MathPage document.

Solution

Modifying a MathPage document is like modifying any other web page, except that you must be careful not to accidentally modify or delete the MathPage tags, which are enclosed in special comments.

Note: equations and symbols will not display correctly in Web editors, since they rely on the execution of dynamic HTML which occurs in your Web browser. In FrontPage, each equation and symbol will be displayed as two red Xs at the end of each paragraph or table in Normal View. If you switch to the Preview View of FrontPage, the equations will display properly. With this in mind, you can still safely make minor changes to the document text.

Some Web editing programs attempt to optimize the HTML MathPage creates by modifying, combining, or deleting apparently superfluous tags. Optimizing simple HTML documents is a much more straightforward process than optimizing MathPage documents, which are much more complex. In Microsoft FrontPage 2000 and earlier, this can cause problems. FrontPage 2002 does not incorrectly alter MathPage output by attempting to optimize it. Opening a MathPage document in a text editor or raw HTML editor is the safest method to use, although the editor must have a strong knowledge of HTML to avoid corrupting the MathPage tags in the document.

Here are the steps for modifying a MathPage document:

1. Save a copy of the MathPage document
2. Editing a MathPage document
3. View the MathPage document in a browser

Save a copy of the MathPage document

It is always a good idea to save a copy of the original HTML document created by MathPage before editing it. This is especially true when modifying a MathPage document, as accidental changes or deletions may cause the document to no longer display correctly in a browser. If you make mistakes editing a MathPage HTML document and have not saved a copy of the original output, you can delete your HTML document and recreate it from Microsoft Word using the Export To MathPage command in the MathType menu of Microsoft Word.

Editing a MathPage document

As a general rule, you can edit the text portion of a MathPage document without difficulty, but you should leave the special MathPage code blocks intact. The MathPage code blocks are sequences of HTML tags enclosed by special MathPage comment tags. The code blocks take the following form:

<!-- MP xxxx( -->
...
[HTML tags]
...
<!-- )MP xxxx -->

where xxxx may be HEAD, BODY, EQ, EQPH, SY, SYPH, or something similar. These blocks of code may be several lines long. You must also be careful not to remove Microsoft Word's definitions in the HEAD of the document, as this may cause the document to display incorrectly.

Note: Any changes you make to a MathPage document will be lost if the MathPage document is generated again from your original source document using the Export To MathPage feature in the MathType menu of Microsoft Word.

View the MathPage document in a browser

As an important final step, you should view the document in a browser to verify that all your equations and symbols appear correctly. If the document was generated for All Browsers, make sure you view the document in several browsers to ensure that it displays correctly.

Feedback

If you often use a favorite Web editor to edit MathPage documents, and would like to see better integration with MathType 5, please send us your comments at feedback@dessci.com.