Tools
Mathematical documents - Needs and tools

Tools for mathematical expression, whether software or abstract models, manipulate or express certain syntaxes. As such, they necessarily rely on the atomic elements that make up their alphabet (or characters).

While constructions such as fractions, sums, square roots, etc., require more or less elaborate constructors, symbols are sufficiently elementary to make do with more "basic" means such as tables.

• Simple character encoding: from the very beginnings of digital technology, minimum character set encodings (EBCDIC, then ASCII) were standardized. It took several years before it was realized that 128 characters was not enough. This led to the definition of more extensive character encodings, such as ISO-Latin1. These support Latin alphabets and their diacritical marks. But mathematical and technical symbols and oriental...