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A Beginner's Guide to MathML

Vectors and Matrices


The markup for vectors and matrices is almost identical to the markup for HTML tables.

The outer most element is <mtable>. It contains only <mtr> row elements, which in turn contains <mtd> data elements. These <mtd> contain the elements of the matrix:

  1. <mfenced>
  2. <mtable>
  3. <mtr>
  4. <mtd> <mn>1</mn> </mtd>
  5. <mtd> <mn>5</mn> </mtd>
  6. <mtd> <mn>3</mn> </mtd>
  7. </mtr>
  8. <mtr>
  9. <mtd> <mn>8</mn> </mtd>
  10. <mtd> <mn>2</mn> </mtd>
  11. <mtd> <mn>6</mn> </mtd>
  12. </mtr>
  13. <mtr>
  14. <mtd> <mn>7</mn> </mtd>
  15. <mtd> <mn>9</mn> </mtd>
  16. <mtd> <mn>0</mn> </mtd>
  17. </mtr>
  18. </mtable>
  19. </mfenced>
 MathML rendering of a matrix using an mtable element

Note that in MathML 1 the <mtd> elements are not required and you may see examples without them. However this will no longer be the case in MathML 2, so to future proof your equations it is best to always include them.

A vector is simply a matrix with one element in each row:

  1. <mfenced>
  2. <mtable>
  3. <mtr>
  4. <mtd> <mn>1</mn> </mtd>
  5. </mtr>
  6. <mtr>
  7. <mtd> <mn>8</mn> </mtd>
  8. </mtr>
  9. <mtr>
  10. <mtd> <mn>7</mn> </mtd>
  11. </mtr>
  12. </mtable>
  13. </mfenced>
 MathML rendering of a three-vector using an mtable element