AIM Cyber Infrastructure Workshop
ar5iv
arXiv
LaTeXML
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
An invited talk for AIM Cyber Infrastructure Workshop, covering HTML for arXiv, ar5iv, LaTeXML and MathML.
2023-12-07
class: center, middle ### LaTeXML à la carte <br> *Aim at Cyber Infrastructure* <br> <br> .footnote[**Deyan Ginev**] .remark-venue[AIM Cyber Infrastructure Workshop<br> December 7, 2023] <div style="position:absolute; top: 12px; right: 20px;"> <div style="position:relative;"> <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" title="This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License"> <img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" width="80" src="https://mirrors.creativecommons.org/presskit/buttons/80x15/png/by.png" /> </a> </div> </div> --- # Topics Technologies and spice: 1. <span class="highlight">A quick on-ramp</span> 2. arXiv and HTML - history and sustainability 3. LaTeXML and LaTeX - get boring, stay better 4. MathML in 2023 - it's time! Q&A or coffee break: - NLP for arXiv, parsing for math syntax, scholarly HTML --- class: center ## arXiv's 2023 call to action <img src='/aim_at_infrastructure/arxiv_a11y_html.png' width='600px'></img> https://info.arxiv.org/about/accessible_HTML.html --- class: center ## arXiv submissions: where are we? <img src='/aim_at_infrastructure/arxiv_submissions_2023.png' width='700px'></img> 90% include LaTeX sources --- class: center ## TLDR: What is ar5iv? An official preview site for arXiv.org as HTML5 (with MathML)<br> <div style="float:left;"> <a href="https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1910.06709"><img src="/cicm2022/ar5iv_light_max.png" width="550px" style="border:solid; border-width:1px;"></a> <a href="https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/1910.06709"><img src="/cicm2022/ar5iv_dark_min.png" width="150px" style="border:solid; border-width:1px;"></a> </div> <div style="clear:both;"></div> 2.1 million e-print documents<br><br> 97% of all LaTeX sources, 74.5% error-free<br><br> available at [ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org](https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org) --- ## LaTeXML https://dlmf.nist.gov/LaTeXML * "free, public domain software, which converts LaTeX documents<br> to XML, HTML, EPUB, JATS and TEI" [(wiki)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeXML) * Developed for, and maintained by - NIST Digital Library of Mathematical Functions - [dlmf.nist.gov](https://dlmf.nist.gov/) * version **0.8.7**, a production-ready Perl application * new version coming up shortly * implements a variant of the TeX typesetting engine * and a small part of the CTAN package ecosystem * over 500 supported LaTeX packages * with another >50 experimental --- # Topics Technologies and spice: 1. A quick on-ramp 2. arXiv and HTML - <span class="highlight">history and sustainability</span> 3. LaTeXML and LaTeX - get boring, stay better 4. MathML in 2023 - it's time! Q&A or coffee break: - NLP for arXiv, parsing for math syntax, scholarly HTML --- ## An idea in 2006 Several one-on-one conversations between: * Michael Kohlhase, KWARC * Bruce Miller, NIST * Robert Miner, Design Science <br> Common needs: - "It would be great to modernize arXiv to XHTML." - "It would be great to have enough MathML for Math Search." - "It would be great to solve LaTeX conversion to XHTML." <br> *Why 2006?* W3C group is re-chartered for work on MathML 3. --- ## A group of enthusiasts in 2007 - arXMLiv project umbrella is created in KWARC - I join, age 19, and stick around - age 36 today. - together with 15+ Jacobs University undergraduates - enable more LaTeX from arXiv by extending LaTeXML - LaTeXML 0.5.99 released --- ## A first result in 2008 <div class="center"> "Transforming the arXiv to XML"<br><br> <span style="font-size:80%">Heinrich Stamerjohanns and Michael Kohlhase</span><br><br> <span>CICM 2008</span><br> </div> <br> - 58% success claimed, of ~400,000 documents. - LaTeXML 0.6.0 released --- ## A second result in 2010 <div class="center"> "Transforming Large Collections of Scientific Publications to XML"<br><br> <span style="font-size:80%">Heinrich Stamerjohanns, Michael Kohlhase, Deyan Ginev, Catalin David and Bruce Miller</span><br><br> <span style="font-size:80%">Mathematics in Computer Science (MCS)</span><br> </div> <br> - 61% success claimed, of ~400,000 documents. - at LaTeXML 0.7.0 --- ## Sustainability? 15 years in hindsight <img width="750px" src="/cicm2022/arxmliv_hype_cycle.png"> --- ## Trough of Disillusionment, 2011-2015 - most arXMLiv members graduated onward - I join a startup at 2014 - available hardware changed every couple of years - original build system, now unmaintained - a new build system took until 2016 to stabilize - incremental progress becomes demotivating - each new batch of arXiv sources lowers success rates - and yet LaTeXML calmly advances to 0.8.1 --- ## Slope of Enlightenment, 2016-2018 - 2015, latexml introduces OmniBus.cls.ltxml - new trend for graceful fallback behaviors - The new Rust build system stabilizes - leveraging ZeroMQ, PostgreSQL, Redis - deployed at [corpora.mathweb.org](https://corpora.mathweb.org) - Rebound in conversion success - 68.04% success on the original 400,000 docs, up from 61% - But! we regress to 59.83% on the full arXiv corpus - 1.07 million documents, until 08.2016. - return to 64.17% overall success only in 08.2018, latexml 0.8.3 --- ## Plateau of productivity, 2018-2023 - We continue to test LaTeXML with arXiv data every year - Bruce tends to add a dozen LaTeX packages per release - Michael continues to provide hardware availability at KWARC - I start working full-time with Bruce on LaTeXML in 2018. - incremental progress becomes motivating. --- ## The vanity slide, 2017-2021 Surprise! - arxiv-vanity.org is independently created - by Ben Firshman and Andreas Jansson - a live preview site for arXiv, initially based on pandoc - mobile-friendly responsive design - we touch base, vanity switches to LaTeXML - arXiv reaches out to all in 2017, interested in having native HTML - a number of preliminary steps, arXiv-NG effort - ... but internal transition leads to a pause - Time for arxiv-vanity maintenace dries up in early 2021 --- ## The need for ar5iv, 2021 - new need and opportunity for a (maintained) preview site - a lot of community interest was developed by -vanity. - In September, I embark on building ar5iv - 3 months of heavy CSS work. - on good days reviewing 100 articles. - we already have the HTML5 data - public dataset releases since 2017, part of SIGMathLing - https://sigmathling.kwarc.info/resources/arxmliv/ - sprinkle in some marketing tricks I picked up in NYC - take any arXiv URL and replace "X" with "5" to get the HTML - ask academic Twitter to spread the word --- ## The ar5iv moment 📢 Jan 31, 2022 <table style="float:left;"> <tr> <td><img src="/cicm2022/ar5iv_moment_tweet.png" width="350px"> </td><td>People... got excited?</td></tr><tr> <td> <img src="/cicm2022/ar5iv_moment_stats.png" width="350px"> </td><td>Half a million recipients in a week.</td></tr></table> --- ## The ar5iv Lab - Feb 21, 2022 <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.arxiv.org/2022/02/21/arxiv-articles-as-responsive-web-pages/"><img src="/sigmathling22/ar5iv_labs_blog.png" width="600px"></a> Now at [ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org](https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org) --- ## Lessons learned - only possible with long-term NIST support for LaTeXML - and with long-term commitment of core members - incremental progress is still progress - at +2% a year, we hit 100% in 13 years *(if only...)* - arXMLiv and ar5iv had **zero** dedicated funding - borrowed hardware, borrowed time - we can not wish away sticky needs - "PDF is all you need." - Wrong! - arxiv-vanity is proof. - project burnout is real - it takes fresh perspectives to heal --- class:center ## 2023: Official arXiv.org HTML Any day now... sneak peek at https://browse.arxiv.org/ --- # Topics Technologies and spice: 1. A quick on-ramp 2. arXiv and HTML - history and sustainability 3. <span class="highlight">LaTeXML and LaTeX</span> - get boring, stay better 4. MathML in 2023 - it's time! Q&A or coffee break: - NLP for arXiv, parsing for math syntax, scholarly HTML --- class: tight-list ## A taste of LaTeXML's ecosystem * NIST: DLMF * Research * Search: [ARQMath](https://www.cs.rit.edu/~dprl/ARQMath/2021/) and NTCIR Math Task * Data: [arXMLiv](https://sigmathling.kwarc.info/resources/arxmliv-dataset-2020/) * OCR: Nougat by Meta AI, [arXiv:2308.13418](https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.13418) * Contributors and tools: * [BookML](https://vlmantova.github.io/bookml/) extension * ResearchGate contributed JATS output * GROBID produces TEI from LaTeX * Books and docs: * European Space Agency: [GAIA Data Docs](https://gea.esac.esa.int/archive/documentation/GDR3/) * [forall x: Calgary](https://forallx.openlogicproject.org/) * [Neuronal Dynamics](https://neuronaldynamics.epfl.ch/online/index.html) * [Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents, 3rd Edition](https://artint.info/3e/html/ArtInt3e.html) --- ## Why isn't LaTeX to HTML solved yet ? (1) Ten+ mature conversion tools<br> * filter: released pre-2020 with active development post-2020 * healthy: 10 projects in 8 prog. languages <table><tbody> <tr><td>latex2html</td><td>perl</td><td><a href="https://github.com/latex2html/latex2html/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>latexml</td><td>perl</td><td><a href="https://math.nist.gov/~BMiller/LaTeXML/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>lwarp</td><td>TeX, lua</td><td><a href="https://www.ctan.org/pkg/lwarp">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>pandoc</td><td>haskell, lua</td><td><a href="https://pandoc.org/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>plastex</td><td>python</td><td><a href="http://plastex.github.io/plastex/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>tex2page</td><td>scheme</td><td><a href="http://ds26gte.github.io/tex2page/index.html">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>tex4ht</td><td>TeX, lua</td><td><a href="https://tug.org/tex4ht/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>tralics</td><td>C++</td><td><a href="http://www-sop.inria.fr/marelle/tralics/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>HeVeA</td><td>OCaml</td><td><a href="http://hevea.inria.fr/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>TTH</td><td>C</td><td><a href="http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/">link</a></td></tr> </tbody></table> --- ## Why isn't LaTeX to HTML solved yet ? (2) <span class="highlight">Answer 1:</span> Of course it is. - "Markdown subset" is well-supported by all tools - so is basic macro expansion <span class="highlight">Answer 2:</span> It is impossible. - a Turing-complete moving target - LaTeX 3 is taking over - CTAN packages continue to evolve - data model mismatch: trees are not boxes <span class="highlight">Answer 3:</span> Bonsai garden - possible for some trees to match with some boxes - graceful fallback to layout directives for the rest --- ## Why isn't LaTeX to HTML solved yet ? (3) The Web is a moving target *Dark mode papers on smartphones?!* 1. Executable documents - reproducible models, interactive visualizations - Authorea, Curvenote, JupyterBooks, ... 2. Science movies - Arcadia Science is [now using](https://research.arcadiascience.com/pub/resource-microchamber-slide#the-microchamber-apparatus-is-effective-at-confining-cells-for-imaging-over-several-hours) the HTML `<video>` tag 3. Scholarly HTML? - schema.org microdata for scientific documents - standard markup for frontmatter, figures, tables, listings, calculi ... - **interoperable** UI components 4. HTML evolves - CSS flexbox, grid, @media - MathML 4, ARIA --- ## The LaTeX Social Contract - arXiv authors write for their human readers - If the PDF can be read, the job is done - authors do **not** write to please markup developers - we all inevitably take shortcuts - the exception proves the rule - So far, adoption favors messy systems --- ## Markup in a hurry, narrative 1. hand-made abstract (arXiv:2208.XXXXX) ```latex \maketitle \begin{quote} \textbf{Abstract} \end{quote} ``` 2. hand-made section (arXiv:hep-ph/95XXXXX) ```latex \clearpage {\bf Introduction.} ``` 3. statements used as list items (arXiv:math/02XXXXX) ```latex \newtheorem*{intropar}{\addtocounter{thm}{1}\arabic{thm}} \begin{intropar} item 1 content \end{intropar} \begin{intropar} item 2 content \end{intropar} ... ``` --- ## Markup in a hurry, math mode 1. hand-made footnote marks (arXiv:1012.XXXX) ``` ... Author Name${}^3$ and Other Name${}^4$ ``` 2. hand-made list item decorations (arXiv:hep-ph/95XXXXX) ```latex $\bullet$ item one content $\bullet$ item two content ``` 3. mixed-mode constructions (arXiv:astro-ph/95XXXXX) ``` observed abundances of $^4$He, $^3$He, and D ``` --- ## Markup of necessity: glyphs - kerning dots into a diagonal ellipsis (arXiv:1502.XXXXX) ```tex \def\qdots{\mathinner{ \mkern1mu\raise1pt\vbox{\kern7pt\hbox{.}} \mkern2mu\raise4pt\hbox{.} \mkern2mu\raise7pt\hbox{.}\mkern1mu}} ``` - old style QED square ```latex \fbox{\phantom{\rule{.7ex}{.7ex}}} ``` We now have Unicode, U+22F0 (⋰), U+25A1 (□). How can we connect them? <br><br> - A general problem of connecting absolute positioning to structural counterparts - XY/tikz/custom diagrams to SVG - hand-crafted title pages to a narrative tree - geometric arrangements of custom "mini pages" - meaningful borders and lines (QED square, inference rules) --- ## Math expressions are trees - a layout tree and an operator tree --- count:false ## Math expressions <s>are</s> have trees - a layout tree and an operator <s>tree</s> graph. --- count:false ## Math expressions <s>are</s> have trees - a layout tree and an operator <s>tree</s> graph. <span style="float:right;padding-bottom:0.5rem;font-size:50%">(arXiv:hep-th/00XXXXX)</span> <img src="/cicm2022/iparenj.jpeg" width="680px"> <hr> <span style="float:right;padding-bottom:0.5rem;font-size:50%">(arXiv:gr-qc/00XXXXX)</span> <img src="/cicm2022/RC_curvature_tensor.png" width="680px"> <hr> <span style="float:right;padding-bottom:0.5rem;font-size:50%">(arXiv:1409.XXXX)</span> <img src="/cicm2022/script_permutations.png" width="680px"> --- ## LaTeXML over arXiv: what is missing? **Coverage:** "brutal long tail" * over 10,000 missing packages and classes * 18.4% documents encounter unknown macros * over 60,000 *distinct* unknown macros, 1.5 million total **Most needed packages** * tikz-cd, epic, biblatex, arydshln, mhchem, tabu, mdframed, eepic * about 5% put together **Math syntax** * ~1 **B**illion math formulas * 1.25 million documents have 1 or more unparsable formulas * more than 23 million formulas overall can not yet be parsed. --- # Topics Technologies and spice: 1. A quick on-ramp 2. arXiv and HTML - history and sustainability 3. LaTeXML and LaTeX - get boring, stay better 4. <span class="highlight">MathML in 2023</span> - it's time! --- # The sticky need for MathML We need a standard representation for math layout. Why? - Interoperable JS services - visual math editors, - math manipulation and interactivity, - search - Performance! - Interoperable Accessibility - avoid single point of vendor failure - AI is ingesting all WWW data - moslty without math syntax properly handled - LaTeX source gets us off the ground - but clean data lands the plane --- # Formula to MathML Tools <table><tbody> <tr><td>temml</td><td>javascript</td><td><a href="https://temml.org/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>TeXzilla</td><td>javascript</td><td><a href="https://fred-wang.github.io/TeXZilla/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>texmath</td><td>haskell</td><td><a href="https://github.com/jgm/texmath">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>Space Math</td><td>javascript</td><td><a href="https://aimath.org/~farmer/spacemath/SpaceMath.html">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>latex2mathml</td><td>python</td><td><a href="https://pypi.org/project/latex2mathml/">link</a></td></tr> <tr><td>many others...</td><td></td><td></td></tr> </tbody></table> --- class:mid-list # MathML History - First edition: 1998 - Full browser support: a single week in 2013 - then Chrome yanks its implementation - MathML winter in 2013-2021 - MathML Core published in 2021 - adds algorithms for browser rendering - down to <span class="highlight">32 elements</span>! (from 195) - Igalia deliver Chromium support in January 2023. - MathML 4 is in active development today - MathML Intent for advanced (speech) accessibility - MathML Core continually refined, now down to 30 elements --- # MathML Today <img src="/aim_at_infrastructure/full_mathml_support.jpeg" width="600px"></img> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/MathML#browser_compatibility --- class: center ## Aside: Some LaTeX bits A day in the life with arXiv data <img src='/aim_at_infrastructure/la_traffic.jpg' width='600px'></img> --- class: center ## Aside: Some LaTeX 3 (in jest) <img src='/aim_at_infrastructure/day_in_the_life.png' width='500px'></img> --- class: center ## Aside: Some LaTeX 3 (in jest) <img src='/aim_at_infrastructure/latex3.jpeg' width='600px'></img> --- class: center ## Aside: Some LaTeX 2 (in jest) <img src='/aim_at_infrastructure/latex2_sty.png' width='450px'></img> --- class: center ## Aside: Some TeX (in jest) <img src='/aim_at_infrastructure/tex_xii.png' width='500px'></img> https://ctan.org/pkg/xii --- class: center ## Lessons learned? <img src='/aim_at_infrastructure/la_traffic.jpg' width='600px'></img> "objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are"