ASCII math notation

ASCII math notation is a notation widely used on Internet sites for typing mathematical expressions to be viewed as such. The notation freely combines elements of the linearized input to mathematics typesetting systems with input conventions as well as the teletype-oriented output notation of older symbolic algebra systems. Examples are given below for commonly abbreviated expressions.

Exponentials

Standard:

$e^{x}\,$

Shorthand:

e^x,

or,

exp(x)

Limits

Standard:

$\lim _{x\to a}f(x)$

Shorthand:

lim(f(x),x,a),

or, in some cases,

lim_x->a f(x),

where a can be a finite quantity, or positive or negative infinity. The limit from the left may be called llim, and the limit from the right rlim. A right or left-sided limit could also be explained in nearby text. Otherwise, any of the following may denote a one-sided limit:

lim(f(x),x,a+)

lim(f(x),x,a-)

lim_x->a+ f(x)

lim_x->a- f(x)

Sums

Standard:

$\sum _{n=a}^{b}a_{n}$

Shorthand:

sum(a_n,n,a,b)

Integrals

Standard:

$\int _{a}^{b}f\left(x\right)dx$

Shorthand:

int(f(x),x,a,b)

Derivatives (in Leibniz notation)

Standard: ${\frac {df(x)}{dx}}$

Shorthand:

df(x)/dx

Partial derivatives

Standard:

${\frac {\partial f(x_{1},x_{2},\dots )}{\partial x_{n}}}$

Shorthand:

df(x_1,x_2,...)/dx_n,

or,

df(x1,x2,...)/dxn

References

• Math Typesetting for the Internet, The Math Forum
• Translating ASCII math notation to Presentation MathML