FFL: A Language and Live Runtime for Styling and Labeling Typeset Math Formulas

As interest grows in learning math concepts in fields like data science and machine learning, it is becoming more important to help broad audiences engage with math notation. In this paper, we explore how authoring tools can help authors better style and label formulas to support their readability. We introduce a markup language for augmenting formulas called FFL, or “Formula Formatting Language,” which aims to lower the threshold to stylize and diagram formulas. The language is designed to be concise, writable, readable, and integrable into web-based document authoring environments. It was developed with an accompanying runtime that supports live application of augmentations to formulas. Our lab study shows that FFL improves the speed and ease of editing augmentation markup, and the readability of augmentation markup compared to baseline LaTeX tools. These results clarify the role tooling can play in supporting the explanation of math notation.