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At the moment, I'm using mimetex to automatically convert a bunch of equations into gif-images.

The program is fast, but the images look pretty bad:

enter image description here

How can I (quickly) convert a LaTeX equation into an SVG image on the command line?

4 Answers 4

20

pdf2svg works quite well.

Use \pagestyle{empty} to avoid page numbers and pdfcrop (package texlive-extra-utils) to remove empty space around the equations

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  • 1
    That works well! It's a little bit slow, and I have a feeling I'm still not doing it quite right (here's the script I'm using). Thanks a lot! Apr 2, 2011 at 23:13
  • Use pdflatex instead of latex, dvips and ps2pdf Apr 2, 2011 at 23:32
  • 1
    It's no faster, but works pretty well. I'd really like a solution that does this job in under 100 ms, and preferably without writing a whole load of files, but it works and I'm happy. :-) This is the result of your answer so far. Apr 3, 2011 at 0:53
  • @Florian Diesch; the example link seems broken, can you remedy, perhaps embedding the example image?
    – enzotib
    Jul 11, 2011 at 9:55
9

A new option is to use mathjax-node from npm. Install a distribution of node, then use npm to install mathjax-node:

$ npm install --global mathjax-node

Edit: You now have to install mathjax-node-cli, however, mathjax-node-cli doesn't show up (yet), so I had to pass the github repo:

$ npm install --global https://github.com/mathjax/mathjax-node-cli.git

Once installed, you will be able to use tex2svg:

$ /usr/local/lib/node_modules/mathjax-node-cli/bin/tex2svg \
'\sin^2{\theta} + \cos^2{\theta} = 1' > identity.svg

And the result:

result of tex2svg, rasterized at 300dpi

The generated SVG file renders properly inside a browser but cannot be displayed using standard image tools.

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    there is no bin in /usr/local/lib/node_modules/mathjax-node/
    – Necktwi
    Mar 27, 2017 at 17:52
4

Have you tried ekee? It's a clone of LatexIt for Mac, it's great! It's hosted on http://rlehy.free.fr/.

enter image description here

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    ekee link says currently unmaintained. ... with last update circa 2008. klatexformula might be an alternative. Jun 24, 2019 at 23:14
3

dvisvgm works quickly and nicely in my experience. It's in TeX Live 2010.

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