MAD (Mathematical Abstract Document) is a document preparation system integrated with Maple. MAD first allows to export Maple expressions into several standard formats, such as LaTeX, PostScript, PDF and HTML. This feature is partially available in Maple and it has been improved: a special effort has been put on the rendering of mathematical objects. MAD also defines a data structure (labelled tree) that represents a document. Such an "abstract" document is independent of the output format and thus reduces to its logical structure and a semantic description of its content. As a data structure, an abstract document can be manipulated by Maple procedures. In particular, entire documents can be produced automatically from minimal inputs.

Integrating MAD into a computer algebra system such as Maple brings the following original features: 1) the automation of the computation and of the typesetting of mathematical formulae, graphs and tables; 2) the automation of the building of documents thanks to the underlying programming language.

The system MAD was created in order to generate the interface of the ESF (Encyclopedia of Special Functions) . The ESF is an automatically generated encyclopedia, where all mathematical formulae and graphs are computed by generic algorithms. The ESF can be compared up to some extent with the Abramowitz and Stegun's Handbook of Mathematical Functions and the DLMF project. This kind of mathematical document sets the following requirements for it to be easily used: pretty display (human readable format) and semantics (machine understandable format) of the mathematical formulae, cross references for browsing and quoting, paper version in several formats. The system MAD is designed to automate the edition and the production of such mathematical documents.

This interactive demo shows how mathematical objects are handled.

Formulae are translated to LaTeX first and then converted to pictures. An automatic line-breaking algorithm spreads the formulae that do not fit within the page over several lines. Graphs are directly exported to pictures by Maple .

Enter any Maple expression (even a plot) in the Maple syntax in the box below. Note that only Maple objects that have an obvious and unambiguous mathematical meaning are supported by default.

The system MAD is distributed under LGPL license. The distribution contains a Maple archive, which includes the online documentation, and the Maple source code. A README file explains how to make MAD available on your system from the distribution. Download MAD. (300 Ko tar.gz).