Math notation font

Question

Is there a font that can be used for math notation? I'm thinking there isn't. If that is the case, does anyone know what the simplest route is to having nice math notation in my iPad app?

Update: Thank you for all the great responses. Looking at the current replies, would people generally recommend that if what I want to do is essentially create a feature that allows people to enter math equations intuitively then I should probably start with MathML as something I would work towards? What I mean is should I take a strategy of creating a UI that enables the user to write his/her math notation such that said notation they input gets converted into MathML (versus simply using a unicode math font which wouldn't already contain some semblance of the typesetting functionality?

Answer 1

You might be able to use the StarMath font from OpenOffice.

I'm sure there are other fonts, but finding a font with the symbols is the easy part. The challenge is in the typesetting.

Answer 2

Unicode provides an amazing array of math-related characters (you can see a lot of examples here: http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/mathchart.html).

Answer 3

I would leverage WebKit's support for MathML, or at least use a javascript library like jsMath. In general typesetting math notation in a non-webview is going to be annoying and take development time away from things that are actually relevant to the specifics of your app.

(It may also be useful to look at MathJax, which looks more modern and shiny than jsMath)