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I run Lubuntu 12.04 and after several terrible experiences with libre office I downloaded core and have not touched it since april. I find kile ok and have been learning to use that and writing with latex.

I am hoping there's a mind mapping program that I could use that is not too "bubbly" but most importantly can handle maths (i.e. latex). I don't need it to be able to integrate with kile but anything extra is a bonus! Tips?

Edit: The latex is needed for writing mathematical equations.

Edit: I thought they were all useful suggestions but on balance, the selected answer was my personal favourite out of them. Though it was tough to decide. Dia particularly does look like a good shout with ekee.

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  • 2
    What is "mind-mapping"?
    – ish
    Aug 14, 2012 at 22:26
  • 2
    it's a technique where you attach ideas in a spidergram to help you remember a central concept or theme
    – Magpie
    Aug 14, 2012 at 23:33
  • Will any online Service work? or you need offline Solution only.
    – BigSack
    Aug 21, 2012 at 9:33
  • online service is worth a look, though offline is preferable.
    – Magpie
    Aug 25, 2012 at 20:21

7 Answers 7

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+50

Have you seen: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/2847/mind-maps-in-latex and https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/44112/mindmapping-with-latex ?

Both suggest http://www.texample.net/tikz/

http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/feature/mindmaps/

...although the provided mindmaps feature is quite "bubbly"

As far as handling Maths:

https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/42611/list-of-available-tikz-libraries-with-a-short-introduction ... Graphics in LATEX using TIKZ ... TIKZ and PGF examples ... and http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/tag/text-and-math/ will also prove helpful.

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    Not exactly what I was thinking but, actually very interesting in its own right! I will have a mess around.
    – Magpie
    Aug 19, 2012 at 6:38
  • 1
    That's the catch...it will take quite a bit messing around to get what you want. It looks like xmind is heading in the direction of including LaTeX Aug 19, 2012 at 7:18
  • More than 2 years later still no latex support -,-.
    – Christian
    May 11, 2015 at 13:29
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This will not completely answer your question but my daughter creates mindmaps using Dia and I use LaTex (although not Kile), I use MikTex and LiveTex.

The common denominator is that both have XML and SVG compatibility. You may have to do some additional research about integration capability as I have never come across your integration requirement before.

Before I continue with my answer, if you don't know already, there is a dedicated TeX/LaTeX Q&A in Stack Exchange. It might not do any harm asking your question there also. Lets start with mind mapping and Dia

Dia is available from the Ubuntu Software Centre and is inspired by Microsoft 'Visio,' though more geared towards casual and informal diagrams including Mind Maps. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams with "special objects" to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other types. My daughter swears by this application (if that’s worth anything)

enter image description here

It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (a format also supported in LaTex), as well as exporting diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages). You may want to refer a question asked here "How to convert latex equations to SVG" as I think this will be an integral step in your final solution.

Example Screenshot of Dia

You can also create custom shapes for Dia Or download additional shapes from their repository here.

I think your requirement(mindmapper +mathematics+LaTeX) begs more clarity regarding what your expectation is, you give an example of LaTeX (using ie) but it would be very useful if we could undertstand your objective better.

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  • What does your daughter use it for? I need latex for adding mathematical/physics equations into the maps
    – Magpie
    Aug 25, 2012 at 20:30
  • Thanks for this suggestion. I would select them both if I could.
    – Magpie
    Aug 25, 2012 at 21:42
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Try freeplane. You can type latex into the nodes. http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

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You can use http://EquationMap.com for this purpose. It is currently a free beta version, no login required, any map you create is public and you can share it using generated URL.

Full disclosure. I'm the author of EquationMap.com

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  • Love your work but since this is specific to ubuntu packages I cannot select this. Still, thanks for sharing.
    – Magpie
    May 28, 2014 at 23:37
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If I understand you correctly, you are looking for a way to type equations in LaTeX notation into a graphical mindmapping tool. If so, there is a LaTeX plugin for FreeMind on GitHub that claims to do just that.

FreeMind itself claims to once have supported a subset of LaTeX.

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You may want to check out the freemindlatex tool at https://github.com/xuehuichao/freemind-latex . It allows you to write in freemind, and get beamer slides. Equations are formatted in a native latex way.

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Coggle is a web-based tool that allows you to create nodes with LaTeX (specifically math) in them by simply writing LaTeX code between \\( and \\). (For new line within the code, you can then use \\\.) More about the feature in this article.

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