Math ML Styling - InDesign 2026

[jctremblay]

In latest release (21.0), Math Expression panel allow choosing styles (regular, italic, etc) for portions of expressions. But the default behavior is to use regular for the entire expressions. This is wrong way of styling math elements and you don’t want to impose user to be styling them correctly manually from the start.
Default styling in 2025 was correct! (see image).



This goes againt all convention and need to be fix.

In mathematical notation, italics are used primarily for variables and symbols representing quantities. The typographical convention has been standardized across scientific disciplines to ensure clarity and consistency.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @jctremblay,

Thanks for sharing your observations. Just to confirm if I understood correctly, you're saying that there shouldn't be an option to apply font styles to portions of an expression, and instead the styling should remain consistent for the entire expression, correct?

I just want to make sure I've captured your feedback accurately before checking this further with the team.

Looking forward to your clarification.

Abhishek

[jctremblay]

The ability to apply styling to individual part of the expression is fine. But the starting expression should have a mixed style according to the convention. Like it was for 2025 implementation. In 2026, it’s all regular, and it’s wrong.

[williamk98826693]

Exactly, all of the letters should be in italics by default, like it in 2025. Now the default is regular font. FIX THIS!

[jctremblay]

Not all characters expressions should be Italic, but only some specific one. Like it was in 2025.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @jctremblay,

I truly appreciate your clarification. I've relayed your insights to the product team for their consideration of this adjustment in the default MathML styling. I will inform you as soon as I receive further information or updates from them.

Thank you for your expertise and thorough feedback!

Abhishek

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @jctremblay,

Thanks again for surfacing this and for the detailed explanation regarding mathematical styling conventions.

I checked with the product team, and the current default behavior where expressions start in regular style, was an intentional change for this release. That said, the team fully recognizes the importance of correct default formatting for professional and scientific workflows, and they are actively evaluating improvements. This includes exploring ways to restore convention-aligned defaults while also giving users better on-canvas styling control for MathML expressions.

I'll keep you updated as soon as I have further news to share.

Really appreciate your expertise and continued engagement!

Abhishek

[hk92340272]

An added note: I have been creating my formulas in another program (MathType) which generates the MathML, and then pasting the markup into the InDesign math expressions box. This has worked almost perfectly for a year. Now, InDesign has stopped recoginizing the <mi> tag and in order to render the markup correctly, I have to either manually add the <mi mathvariant="italic"> to the markup or go through and change each item individually with the math expression font style tool. Either of these are so time-consuming as to render using the tool fairly useless, even though I prefer the flexibility of it. Can you get it back to reconginizing the basic italic tag in MathML?

[jctremblay]

The same issues occur when copy/pasting equations from Word. Copy/paste of math equations from Word to InDesign is not supported in 2026, but when pasted, InDesign converts everything to regular text, causing loss of default italic formatting.

The current implementation is unusable for professionals in its present state.

[jctremblay]

@hk92340272 
If you copy your mathml equation in a text frame, you can perform a find/change using this script.

#targetengine "session"
(function() {
if (!app.selection.length || !app.selection[0].parentStory) return;

app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "<mi>(.+?)</mi>";
app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = "<mi mathvariant=\"italic\">$1</mi>";

app.selection[0].parentStory.changeGrep();

app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
})();

Or a regular FInd /Change GREP can also do this.

Unfortunately InDesign don’t suport Find/Change in MathML object code directly natively or via scripting.
@Abhishek Rao  Please add this as a FR to the team.

[hk92340272]

Yeah, it's less useful when I have several hundred smaller equations in a document, unfortunately. I'm looking into configuring the translator in MathType to output the longer version of the tag, but haven't hit on success yet. 

[jctremblay]

I understand that and this is why Adobe need to change this behavior.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @jctremblay,

Thanks once again for bringing this to our attention. I have already shared the request with the product team for review. To help increase visibility and prioritization, could you also log it on our UserVoice platform: https://adobe.ly/4pj5xkM. If you're able to share the UserVoice link here in the thread as well, other members can easily upvote and support it too.

I truly appreciate your expertise and the valuable feedback you continue to provide!

Abhishek