Moodle guidance for accessible maths

Published on: 03/10/2023 · Last updated on: 02/09/2024

How to add equations in Moodle

You can add maths anywhere there is an editor box and it will be rendered using MathJax, which makes it accessible to screen readers.

Adding equations with the Moodle equation editor

To graphically insert an equation with the Equation Editor, first open the Expanded view (second row of editor buttons) and then the equation editor symbol (calculator), highlighted in the image.

You can then either pick symbols/characters from the equation palette or enter in LaTeX.

Writing LaTeX maths into Moodle

You can write LaTeX syntax directly in the text editor between \( … \) or \[ … \] for display and inline maths, respectively.

For multiline equations in Moodle, you can use the eqnarray or align environments using the “&” to control alignment as usual. For example:

Note, if you want the text editor view to display over multiple lines (as in the example above) when using the eqnarray or align environments, you must use Shift Enter (this corresponds to an html <br> tag) so Moodle interprets it as a single LaTeX block (rather multiple paragraphs). Alternatively you can enter the above commands as usual in Moodle’s html mode, but remember that formatting is not preserved.

Help with ‘Maths processing error’ in MathJax content

MathJax content can sometimes not display as expected, this may be due to the incorrect MathJax library being loaded. The following guide ‘How to fix Moodle content loading older MathJax libraries‘ may help.