How to Convert Word Equations to MathML in InDesign

Hi, emma1973!

It certainly hasn't worked out yet, the development of MathML in indesign is not there yet. But if you read our posts above, you can see for yourself. Slowly but surely they are making progress! 🙂

In the meantime I'll describe how I did a similar job last year without MathML:

1. I saved a PDF of a word document;

2. Acrobat: File/Export as PDF/Postscript

Optionally, in the pop-up window, bottom right: Settings/Output/Composite Gray (so RGB black becomes CMYK 100% black)

3. From the resulting ps file, I opened the page in Illustrator containing the equation that is currently in progress

4. I copied the given equation (to Clipboard)

5. In InDesign, black arrow should be selected!

6. Paste from clipboard

7. Copy again what you have copied

8. Paste equation into the text where you need it. (Last year it didn't work to copy the equation from Illustrator to the appropriate text in InDesign right away.)

Yes, slow, lengthy - but it works and it prints! 🙂

I have copied and pasted the separate characters and parts of the equation (e.g. rho, lambda, pi, different values, etc.) from the equation already copied into InDesign and pasted them into the right place, if the font was too different from the Cambria Math type.

Important:

Before you save the whole document from word to pdf, save only one page first, so that you can set the correct font size in word, so that you don't have to reduce or enlarge the equation in InDesign!

Too bad: that is the wrong 'flavour' of MathML.

It looks like:
<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:m="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/math"><mml:mi mathvariant="bold">u</mml:mi><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mi mathvariant="bold">A</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="bold">sin</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mo>⁡</mml:mo><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="bold"> </mml:mi><mml:mfenced separators="|"><mml:mrow><mml:mfrac><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="bold">t</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="bold">T</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:mfrac><mml:mo>.</mml:mo><mml:mn>360</mml:mn><mml:mo>°</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:mfenced></mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:math>

I am not a specialist, but I know I need another flavour.