Rendering math equations?

[lancejpollard]

Does markup currently support rendering math equations (for github-flavored-markdown)?

This SO question suggests the only way to currently do this is to use an external service like iTex2Img to render latex to equations:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11256433/how-to-show-math-equations-in-general-githubs-markdownnot-githubs-blog

Do you guys support rendering math in the markdown, similar to how math.stackexchange.com does it? If not, would you be willing to support this and/or accept a pull request implementing this? It would be awesome to use equations in the READMEs and such for things like algorithms and natural language processing / machine learning code.

http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/82876/given-a-prime-p-in-mathbbn-is-a-fracxp2-1xp-1-irreducible-i?rq=1

[gjtorikian]

GFM doesn't support this at the moment.

/cc @arfon

[bkeepers]

I know we've supported latex and MathJax in the past, and both caused a lot of headaches. We would be interesting in adding support for something as long as it is not a maintenance burden and doesn't open us up to security vulnerabilities.

[lancejpollard]

Ok cool, good to know. Sucks that they caused headaches. Yeah not a fan of MathJax at all, mainly because it has noticeable delays in rendering if done purely on the client.

What were the problems you faced with latex in the past (security vulnerabilities and such)? Would be interesting to understand that, thinking about building a math parser.

I think this one is the best, mainly because it's fast:

http://mathscribe.com/author/jqmath.html

But it only works on the client, unless you guys could use some server-side DOM to render. But that's probably too much to ask :)

Any thoughts on what the ideal would look like? Is it an image generator like iTex2Img or more like jqmath (or markdown), where it generates HTML?

[bkeepers]

What were the problems you faced with latex in the past (security vulnerabilities and such)?

Yep. latex just has so many feature that it's impossible for us to deploy it securely right now.

Any thoughts on what the ideal would look like?

I haven't thought about it a lot, but we're not picky as long as it provides a good user experience and is easy to maintain.

[lancejpollard]

@bkeepers would you guys be down to integrate KaTeX from the Khan Academy? Looks pretty solid, and it has server-side rendering.

https://github.com/Khan/KaTeX

It could be just:

```tex
\sum_{x=0}^n f(x)
```

Or depending on how performant it was, you could add support for the StackOverflow-like $ for inline TeX, and $$ for block TeX if you wanted.

Thoughts?

[macalinao]

Can you add this in like StackOverflow has it?

[bkeepers]

KaTeX looks pretty cool, but it's very young and incomplete. We're definitely exploring ways for rendering math in a performant and maintainable way. We have a few promising options. Sit tight.

[lancejpollard]

Awesome, can't wait :D

[MatthewRalston]

Please and thank you

[gnustudent]

By which date do github plan to deploy (at least) beta support for math equations?

[hilaryparker]

+1, would love to see this!!

[bodokaiser]

+1 too

[jaak-s]

+1

[espinielli]

+1

[ajunior]

+1

[syzer]

+1

[bkeepers]

Thanks everyone for letting us know you care about this. We hear you. We're exploring options and will post updates here.

[bkeepers]

This issue can't be resolved by a change to the code in this project, so I'm going to close this issue.

[martinwoodward]

Fixed. https://github.blog/2022-05-19-math-support-in-markdown/