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

You may also take a look on my tool latexMarkdown2Markdown which convert LaTeX to SVG and generate a table of content with chapter numbering.

Answer 2

You can use markdowns, e.g.

![equ](https://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?log(y)=\beta_0&space;+&space;\beta_1&space;x&space;+&space;u)

Code can be typed here: https://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php.

Answer 3

If you are having issues with https://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php, I found that https://alexanderrodin.com/github-latex-markdown/ worked for me. It generates the Markdown code you need, so you just cut and paste it into your README.md document.

Answer 4

For short expresions and not so fancy math you could use the inline HTML to get your latex rendered math on codecogs and then embed the resulting image. Here an example:

- <img src="https://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?O_t=\text { Onset event at time bin } t " /> 
- <img src="https://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?s=\text { sensor reading }  " /> 
- <img src="https://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?P(s | O_t )=\text { Probability of a sensor reading value when sleep onset is observed at a time bin } t " />

Which should result in something like the next

Update: This works great in eclipse but not in github unfortunately. The only work around is the next:

Take your latex equation and go to http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php, at the bottom of the area where your equation appears displayed there is a tiny dropdown menu, pick URL encoded and then paste that in your github markdown in the next way:

![equation](http://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?O_t%3D%5Ctext%20%7B%20Onset%20event%20at%20time%20bin%20%7D%20t)
![equation](http://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?s%3D%5Ctext%20%7B%20sensor%20reading%20%7D) 
![equation](http://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?P%28s%20%7C%20O_t%20%29%3D%5Ctext%20%7B%20Probability%20of%20a%20sensor%20reading%20value%20when%20sleep%20onset%20is%20observed%20at%20a%20time%20bin%20%7D%20t)

Answer 5

You can get a continuous integration service (e.g. Travis CI) to render LaTeX and commit results to github. CI will deploy a "cloud" worker after each new commit. The worker compiles your document into pdf and either cuses ImageMagick to convert it to an image or uses PanDoc to attempt LaTeX->HTML conversion where success may vary depending on your document. Worker then commits image or html to your repository from where it can be shown in your readme.

Sample TravisCi config that builds a PDF, converts it to a PNG and commits it to a static location in your repo is pasted below. You would need to add a line that fetches pdfconverts PDF to an image

sudo: required
dist: trusty
os: linux
language: generic
services: docker
env:
  global:
  - GIT_NAME: Travis CI
  - GIT_EMAIL: builds@travis-ci.org
  - TRAVIS_REPO_SLUG: your-github-username/your-repo
  - GIT_BRANCH: master
# I recommend storing your GitHub Access token as a secret key in a Travis CI environment variable, for example $GH_TOKEN.
  - secure: ${GH_TOKEN}
script:
- wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blang/latex-docker/master/latexdockercmd.sh
- chmod +x latexdockercmd.sh
- "./latexdockercmd.sh latexmk -cd -f -interaction=batchmode -pdf yourdocument.tex -outdir=$TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR/"
- cd $TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR
- convert -density 300 -quality 90 yourdocument.pdf yourdocument.png
- git checkout --orphan $TRAVIS_BRANCH-pdf
- git rm -rf .
- git add -f yourdoc*.png
- git -c user.name='travis' -c user.email='travis' commit -m "updated PDF"
# note we are again using GitHub access key stored in the CI environment variable
- git push -q -f https://your-github-username:$GH_TOKEN@github.com/$TRAVIS_REPO_SLUG $TRAVIS_BRANCH-pdf
notifications:
  email: false

This Travis Ci configuration launches a Ubuntu worker downloads a latex docker image, compiles your document to pdf and commits it to a branch called branchanme-pdf.

For more examples see this github repo and its accompanying sx discussion, PanDoc example, https://dfm.io/posts/travis-latex/, and this post on Medium.

Answer 6

I test some solution proposed by others and I would like to recommend TeXify created and proposed in comment by agurodriguez and further described by Tom Hale - I would like develop his answer and give some reason why this is very good solution:

• TeXify is wrapper of Readme2Tex (mention in Lee answer). To use Readme2Tex you must install a lot of software in your local machine (python, latex, ...) - but TeXify is github plugin so you don't need to install anything in your local machine - you only need to online installation that plugin in you github account by pressing one button and choose repositories for which TeXify will have read/write access to parse your tex formulas and generate pictures.
• When in your repository you create or update *.tex.md file, the TeXify will detect changes and generate *.md file where latex formulas will be exchanged by its pictures saved in tex directory in your repo. So if you create README.tex.md file then TeXify will generate README.md with pictures instead tex formulas. So parsing tex formulas and generate documentation is done automagically on each commit&push :)
• Because all your formulas are changed into pictures in tex directory and README.md file use links to that pictures, you can even uninstall TeXify and all your old documentation will still works :). The tex directory and *.tex.md files will stay on repository so you have access to your original latex formulas and pictures (you can also safely store in tex directory your other documentation pictures "made by hand" - TeXify will not touch them).
• You can use equations latex syntax directly in README.tex.md file (without loosing .md markdown syntax) which is very handy. Julii in his answer proposed to use special links (with formulas) to external service e.g . http://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?s%3D%5Ctext%20%7B%20sensor%20reading%20%7D which is good however has some drawbacks: the formulas in links are not easy (handy) to read and update, and if there will be some problem with that third-party service your old documentation will stop work... In TeXify your old documentation will works always even if you uninstall that plugin (because all your pictures generated from latex formulas are stay in repo in tex directory).
• The Yuchao Jiang in his answer, proposed to use Jupyter Notebook which is also nice however have som drawbacks: you cannot use formulas directly in README.md file, you need to make link there to other file *.ipynb in your repo which contains latex (MathJax) formulas. The file *.ipynb format is JSON which is not handy to maintain (e.g. Gist don't show detailed error with line number in *.ipynb file when you forgot to put comma in proper place...).

Here is link to some of my repo where I use TeXify for which documentation was generated from README.tex.md file.

Update

Today 2020.12.13 I realised that TeXify plugin stop working - even after reinstallation :(