Fact 1.
As of April 24, 2026, most state and local governments (and their public colleges and universities) must adhere to WCAG 2.1, Level AA for accessible electronic documents. [Source]
Section
2026 January 01Do you know if your mathematical documents are accessible? Can an unsighted reader navigate/read a \(\LaTeX\)-typeset formula like
\begin{equation*}
\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\frac{1}{\sigma\sqrt{2\pi}} e^{-\frac{1}{2}\frac{\left(x-\mu\right)^2}{\sigma}} dx = 1
\end{equation*}
inside of your document?
Well, if you’re like us, you don’t actually know exactly how it all works! That’s why we started using PreTeXt to author our documents. PreTeXt is the leading semantic markup language for typesetting accessible scholarly documents, especially in mathematics. And PreTeXt supports PreFigure, facilitating the creation of accessible diagrams that may be easily navigated with a screen reader or rendered in a tactile format.
Furthermore, PreTeXt is free and open source! But until now, authoring in PreTeXt typically required a complicated local installation process, or using GitHub Codespaces to install the software to a virtual machine in the cloud.
“Why can’t it just be as simple as Overleaf or Google Docs?” you ask? Well, we asked ourselves that too. And that’s why we are excited to announce PreTeXt.Plus, a simple service where you can log in, write PreTeXt, and immediately share the results with your students and colleagues.
Definition 3.
PreTeXt.Plus (
https://pretext.plus) is a web service designed to get authors quickly started writing with the leading semantic markup language for typesetting mathematical documents: PreTeXt.
You’re reading the first-ever document written and shared on PreTeXt.Plus, but we don’t think this will be the last! Invite codes will be going out for free beta accounts in the coming weeks, but we hope to quickly grow to serve even more users in the near future!
To learn more about PreTeXt and PreTeXt.Plus, find us in Washington, D.C. for the 2026 Joint Mathematics Meetings! We’ll be hanging around the American Institute of Mathematics booth in the exhibit hall for much of the conference.
Can’t make it to JMM? Join our chat in the MathTech.org Discord server any time, where we talk all things PreTeXt and other open-source mathematics software.
We’re excited to start this new adventure in helping faculty like you author high-quality, interactive, and accessible mathematical documents.
Write once. Read anywhere. By anyone.
- Steven and Oscar
