Re: behavior of @math with HTML output

[Gavin Smith]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 07:06:04AM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 12:40:08AM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > On 2022-10-13 21:15:57 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > > I agree with Gavin, you should not use @math if you want normal text,
> > > but given that there is now good support of TeX math in texi2any for
> > > HTML with any of the 3 HTML_MATH option,
> > 
> > All of them are buggy:
> >   * l2h generates image files as documented, which have many drawbacks
> >     (do not work with text browsers, not accessible, font size issues
> >     with a graphical browser...).
> 
> That is not a bug.
> 
> >   * Concerning t4h,
> >       @math{@var{base} \le 16},
> >     yields "@varbase ≤ 16 ,", so @var doesn't work (while it is needed
> >     to ensure exactly the same typography/code as outside @math, e.g.
> >     <var>base</var>) and there is a spurious space before the comma.
> 
> This is a minor bug but Texinfo commands like @var should not be used inside
> @math.

So for @var inside @math, it would be better to find some pure TeX notation
for this.

I couldn't find a usage that would work perfectly for texinfo.tex, MathJax and
tex4ht.

The following

@math{{\sl base} \le 16},

works with texinfo.tex and tex4ht, but not MathJax.  There seems to
be no way to get slanted roman text with MathJax; even the \textsl of
LaTeX doesn't work.  (However, if you are not using MathJax maybe this
doesn't matter.)

@math{\hbox{base} \le 16},

will work for all settings, as far as I can tell, but does not slant
the variable.  I believe that using \hbox is the best choice for
embedding text into formulas.