Latex rendering in README.md on Github

Question

Is there any way to render LaTex in README.md in a GitHub repository? I\'ve googled it and searched on stack overflow but none of the related answers seems feasible.

Answer 1

I upload repositories with equations to Gitlab because it has native support for LaTeX in .md files:

```math
SE = \frac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}}
```

The syntax for inline latex is $`\sqrt{2}`$.

Gitlab renders equations with JavaScript in the browser instead of showing images, which improves the quality of equations.

More info here.

Let's hope Github will implement this as well in the future.

Answer 2

For automatic conversion upon push to GitHub, take a look at the TeXify app:

GitHub App that looks in your pushes for files with extension *.tex.md and renders it's TeX expressions as SVG images

How it works (from the source repository):

Whenever you push TeXify will run and seach for *.tex.md files in your last commit. For each one of those it'll run readme2tex which will take LaTeX expressions enclosed between dollar signs, convert it to plain SVG images, and then save the output into a .md extension file (That means that a file named README.tex.md will be processed and the output will be saved as README.md). After that, the output file and the new SVG images are then commited and pushed back to your repo.

Answer 3

One can also use this online editor: https://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php which generates SVG files on the fly. You can put a link in your document like this: ![](https://latex.codecogs.com/svg.latex?y%3Dx%5E2) which results in: .

Answer 4

My quick solution is this:

step 1. Add latex to your .md file

$$x=\sqrt{2}$$

Note: math eqns must be in $$...$$ or \\(... \\).

step 2. Add the following to your scripts.html or theme file (append this code at the end)

<script type="text/javascript" async

src="https://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-MML-AM_CHTML">

Done!. See your eq. by loading the page.

Answer 5

My trick is to use the Jupyter Notebook.

GitHub has built-in support for rendering .ipynb files. You can write inline and display LaTeX code in the notebook and GitHub will render it for you.

Here's a sample notebook file: https://gist.github.com/cyhsutw/d5983d166fb70ff651f027b2aa56ee4e

Answer 6

Readme2Tex

I've been working on a script that automates most of the cruft out of getting LaTeX typeset nicely into Github-flavored markdown: https://github.com/leegao/readme2tex

There are a few challenges with rendering LaTeX for Github. First, Github-flavored markdown strips most tags and most attributes. This means no Javascript based libraries (like Mathjax) nor any CSS styling.

The natural solution then seems to be to embed images of precompiled equations. However, you'll soon realize that LaTeX does more than just turning dollar-sign enclosed formulas into images.

Simply embedding images from online compilers gives this really unnatural look to your document. In fact, I would argue that it's even more readable in your everyday x^2 mathematical slang than jumpy .

I believe that making sure that your documents are typeset in a natural and readable way is important. This is why I wrote a script that, beyond compiling formulas into images, also ensures that the resulting image is properly fitted and aligned to the rest of the text.

For example, here is an excerpt from a .md file regarding some enumerative properties of regular expressions typeset using readme2tex:

As you might expect, the set of equations at the top is specified by just starting the corresponding align* environment

**Theorem**: The translation $[\![e]\!]$ given by
\begin{align*}
...
\end{align*}
...

Notice that while inline equations ($...$) run with the text, display equations (those that are delimited by \begin{ENV}...\end{ENV} or $$...$$) are centered. This makes it easy for people who are already accustomed to LaTeX to keep being productive.

If this sounds like something that could help, make sure to check it out. https://github.com/leegao/readme2tex