MathTeX is a CGI program, written in C, that uses LaTeX and either dvipng or dvips/convert to emit GIF or PNG images of LaTeX mathematical expressions. Users can put mathematics directly in html pages with an <img> tag of the form

• <img src="/cgi-bin/mathtex.cgi?f(x)=\int_{-\infty}^xe^{-t^2}dt">
• (see the package home page for a complete discussion).

MathTeX is a successor of the author's earlier mimeTeX; but mathTeX uses real LaTeX, where as mimeTeX uses its own built-in fonts, interpreter and rendering engine. Users who have LaTeX available on their server can obtain higher quality images and full LaTeX support with mathTeX. Users whose server doesn't offer LaTeX can continue to use mimeTeX. The two programs are “plug-compatible”, using the same <img> tag “user interface”, so migration is trivial.

The package home page carries extensive documentation of MathTeX.