# The MiniLaTex Project

The aim of the MiniLaTex project is to provide a way for authors to write LaTeX documents directly on the web. MathJax does a beautiful job of rendering formulas. But what about the rest? Sections, tables, cross-references, hyperlinks, etc.? MiniLaTeX, building on MathJax, handles these and many other elements in a defined subset of LaTeX, sufficient for writing class materials, lecture notes, etc.

$$\int_0^1 x^n dx = \frac{1}{n+1}$$

Take a look at MiniLaTeX Demo for a little editor that you can experiment with. Two panels: source text on the left, rendered text on the right. No login required.

Delivering content

There are many ways to deliver MiniLaTeX content to colleagues, students, or the general public. One vehicle is the MiniLaTeX Reader. It can sit inside any web page, along with other material. The app itself is configured to point at MiniLaTeX Notebook: a set of related documents such as a set of lecture notes. The Reader can be used to access other MiniLaTeX documents as well those to which it points by default. An institution can deploy as many Readers on its pages as it needs.

Another vehicle is knode.iok for knowldge. This is a full content management system. To create content, an author simply registers for an account and begins using the two-panel editor as with MiniLaTeX Live. Once the author makes the document public, it is accessible to everyone.

While knode.io has its own search engine, which is one way to discover MiniLaTeX documents, there are several other ways to publish: (1) Authors have a home page on knode.io where their documents are listed. (2) every document has a numerical ID, just as we have Social Security numbers. It suffices to provide that ID, like this: knode.io/427. (3) Embed a link in any web page, e.g., Lecture 2: Wave Packets.

Use in courses

MiniLaTeX has been used for courses at the Beijing International Center For Mathematical Research (BICMR), Ohio State University and Colorado State University. Here is one example, a set of lecture notes for a course I taught at BICMR and OSU: Notes on Quantum Field Theory.