Nearly a year ago, I published my take on the maths expressions panel that had been introduced into the 2025 version of Adobe InDesign. The take-away points were:

• It was difficult – if not impossible – for a layperson to use;
• If you could prepare the necessary artwork, it would only prepare them using RGB colors, despite having an option in the dialog box to choose a color;
• It allowed users to create new mathML graphics, but not import them en masse from a source such as a Microsoft Word file.

Since writing that article, two improvements have happened:

• the April 2025 release of InDesign v20.3 featured an improved Maths Expressions panel; and
• a clever (and classic) workaround has the ability to make the mathML graphics appear in whatever color is desired, provided that the background the graphic is on isn’t too busy.

Improved Maths Expressions panel

The first thing to note about the panel is that it now provides two ways to create a math expression:

• the previous way, by converting an existing mathML object using the Insert MathML button; or
• by creating a mathML expression from scratch using the new Create Expression button.

Adobe have a brief guide on their help page that is worth reading before using this tool. If however, you want to dive in head-first, open the Maths Expressions panel from the window menu and from the panel, click the Create Expression button.

The cursor will now change to an Insert Expression icon, and once placed, will show a frame with the words Insert Expression written in it.

From the Maths Expressions panel, click on the desired expression structure (the panel may fly out with more options) and select the structure that is required, and the words Insert Expression are replaced with the new structure.

From here, the interface is less intuitive (and to be quite blunt) somewhat frustrating, but instead of trying to highlight the part of the structure you want to replace, put your cursor next to it and begin typing – the placeholder will then disappear and be replaced by what you type. Unfortunately this can be quite annoying, and it is made worse by using the undo command as instead of undoing the last keystroke that have been the actual mistake, it will revert the entire expression back to the beginning!

Nevertheless, after several attempts, I was able to make the following formula for glucose:

To be fair, this is something that could have been done with regular type tools and subscript character formatting, so let’s try something harder – Newton’s law of universal gravitation:

Admittedly, the more you use this feature, the easier it becomes… the hardest part is NOT to use the undo function if a mistake is made!

Workaround to fix color issue

Unfortunately the color issue was not fixed in this release. In short, the panel lets a user apply a color swatch to the Math Expression.

Despite setting this color, it is possible using the Separations Preview to see that the swatch selected isn’t actually applied, but instead and RGB-to-CMYK real-time conversion of the color is applied.

Luckily, fellow Adobe Community Expert Jean-Claude Tremblay offers a script that will provide a workaround to this issue. He has prepared a full video on its use but if I just want to apply true black to this graphic, I click on the Math Expression and then run his script. I’m then prompted for the scope of the script and the colors I’d like to use, as well as a commit dialog and finally a confirmation dialog.

Once run, the black is true black.

What’s the secret?

So how did a user and enthusiast of Adobe InDesign manage to do something that the actual software developers couldn’t do? Well, he’s actually leveraged a technique that I used to colorize data merge items which is a technique borrowed from InDesign legend Pariah Burke.

The technique is best summarised from this graphic:

The beauty of Jean-Claude’s script though is that it automates preparing this technique for each math item that requires an appropriate true color.

My thoughts on these developments

I must say the Maths Expression update is an improvement over the initial panel that greeted users in October 2024. However, there is always plenty of room for improvement such as:

• Ability to apply true colors without the use of a workaround;
• Fix the undo function so that hitting undo will revert one step backwards with changes in the equation, rather than going right back to the start;
• Adjust the interface so that it is more in line with how InDesign works, such as the ability to highlight a character and then type to replace it, rather than placing the cursor to the right and then typing.

Despite the improvements, there is still scope for the InDesign team to further improve on this concept by also updating the file/place feature so that equations from Microsoft Word come in as Maths Expressions… though I do admit that this is truly blue-sky thinking.

Full Disclosure

As usual, I haven’t been paid by any company or person mentioned in this article to promote their products. I will disclose that Jean-Claude did reach out to me about the script and provided me a free copy. However, this happened after I had written (but hadn’t published) my article about the update to the Maths Expression panel – an update released in April 2025 but that I’ve only just begun to explore recently. Jean-Claude and I are also peers through the Adobe Community Experts, we’re both avid users of the Omata Mate plug-in, and despite not having met face to face, have met over video chats.