# MathJax display issues within iOS app

I have been using the Stack Exchange app on my iPhone for three months or four. Generally this app is really appreciated, which provides a relatively quicker connection to this site and a freer browsing experience. But here is a very frequent problem that I have been encountering within this app - the MathJax display often looks out of order under certain circumstances. (Although on the computer these problems are usually gone)
I've got two examples here that represent two kinds of Jax display problems within this iOS app:
The first is the "overlap" problem. The screenshot below is the famous MathJax tutorial post. This is not the only case where the overlap occurs (it's just I happened to browse this page and just caught it), in fact there are really many cases.

The second is the "overflow" problem, which is much more common to be seen. The screenshot is an answer by @Oliver Oloa. Since it is impossible to scroll horizontally within iOS app, it's my impression that whenever a line is too long for the mobile phone screen, the overflowing part will be missing.

I have to confess that these two display problems do cause some inconvenience sometimes, especially the "overflow" problem. Could anybody help? (Is it ok to ask here?).
I know it's perhaps all because iPhone screen is too small to display a very long line which, however, would look just ok on PC. But I guess there would always be ways to solve such problems. Maybe forcibly break a long line into smaller lines so that the iPhone screen can hold?
Best regards!

EDIT:
For the second problem, now I think maybe it's not necessary nor proper to forcibly break the lines, perhaps all that is needed to do is enable scrolling horizontally within iOS app.

• Now on Meta: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/256319/… – HDE 226868 May 12 '15 at 0:52
• @HDE226868. I have deleted the reposted post and flagged this post for moderator migrating it – Vim May 12 '15 at 1:11
• This is a problem on Android mobile browsers as well. I use Chrome Beta, and I see the overlap problem quite commonly. – Pritt Balagopal May 20 '17 at 15:06
• @PrittBalagopal for iOS the overlapping problem isn't so bad. Anyway things got much better since the scrolling feature was added, owing a big thank to Brian Nickel. – Vim May 20 '17 at 15:30

[I believe this needs to be transferred to meta.stackexchange.com].

There are two separate MathJax problems and possibly one app problem here

• the overlapping equation labeling. This is a bug in MathJax which we thought we had fixed in v2.5 -- sorry about that.
• the line-breaking/overflow issues. Linebreaking is a difficult problem and largely relies on the quality of the underlying markup (e.g., matching fences such as \right( ... \left) etc). However, tables (e.g., arrays which I suspect that screenshot shows) are generally not broken (for the obvious reason that they are tables) but line-breaking within table cells is also limited right now. The overflow is generally a feature (not a bug) in so far as MathJax's line-breaking algorithm considers a small overlap favorable over large amounts of white space at the end of a line.
• I don't have an iOS device available just now but on Android, overflowing equations are scrollable so you can still access the overflowing part. That might actually a bug (or limitation) of the iOS app. Perhaps you could confirm that?
• Thank you! Yes within the iOS app scrolling horizontally is impossible, that's perhaps what the real bug is. – Vim May 12 '15 at 0:30
• And btw could you show me how to migrate this problem to meta.SE.com? I have never done such operations before. – Vim May 12 '15 at 0:32
• Is copying and pasting ok? There seem to be no "migrate" links there. – Vim May 12 '15 at 0:42
• Overflow scrolling is definitely doable. Maybe even opening in a zoomable pop up like code. Not sure what version we're using in the app but I see the same problems on the mobile site. – Brian Nickel May 12 '15 at 5:36
• +vim I think we need the moderators to migrate. – Peter Krautzberger May 12 '15 at 6:14

Per my answer on Meta.SE I'm adding scrolling to wide display MathJax and upgrading to 2.5.3. This has not solved the problem of tags overlapping with equations, but as Peter mentioned it's a known issue in MathJax.

The changes will appear in the next build.