CZ:Formatting mathematics/Scriptstyle

Statement of proposed policy

To determine: Whether to use \scriptstyle to reduce the size of PNG-rendered inline math formulas.

Example with \scriptstyle: The identity $\scriptstyle e^{2\pi i}=\int _{0}^{\infty }e^{-x}\,dx$ is cool.

Example without \scriptstyle: The identity $e^{2\pi i}=\int _{0}^{\infty }e^{-x}\,dx$ is cool.

Editors' opinions

• Greg Martin 12:19, 11 May 2007 (CDT) supports a policy of not using \scriptstyle.

Arguments in favor of using \scriptstyle

• The letters in $A+B\equiv C$ look comically gigantic on some browsers.

Rebuttal: The appearance depends on preferences of the viewer - their chosen font size, for example - and so fixing the problem for one person might cause a problem for another.

• \scriptstyle is almost never used for other purposes. Let's use it for this purpose, and then if the coding is ever changed to fix the problem for us, it's easy to automate the process of removing \scriptstyles from all the pages.

Rebuttal: Such an automated process could mess up "legitimate" uses of \scriptstyle.

Arguments in favor of not using \scriptstyle

• Using \scriptstyle doesn't reflect the right structure; it's a hack. And it's a real pain to type all the time.

Rebuttal: So what? It provides the outcome we want. And math formatting in general is kind of a pain - this isn't any worse.

• Since some math environments are rendered as HTML and others as PNG, we'd have to remember when to use \scriptstyle and when not to.

Rebuttal: Just use it every appropriate time, assuming everything will be PNG-rendered. HTML will just ignore it.

• The problem isn't with \scriptstyle; it's with the way the coding displays the results. We should have the coding changed rather than manually inserting \scriptstyle a hundred times an article.

Rebuttal: Coding changes that we request are rare and wondrous events. We need to make things look good right now.

• Using \scriptstyle might fix the problems on some browsing environments, but it will cause problems on others. It depends on what preferences the user has selected for math rendering, font size, and so on.

Rebuttal: Anecdotal evidence suggests that for the large majority of users, using \scriptstyle helps.

Changing the system itself

It was suggested that global resizing of PNG-rendered formulas is possible. This would eliminate the need for \scriptstyle (or leave it for its proper use). The only question would be to determine the "right" size, as the displayed formulas will be affected too.

If this is possible, then it might also be possible to create two math environments, perhaps called <imath> and <dmath> (for inline and displayed), which would be almost exactly the same - except that <imath> would render smaller graphics while <dmath> would be like <math> is now.