## Thursday, 20 November 2008

### TeX on Blogger

It's done! After about an hour of desperately trying to set it up using various approaches, I finally came across Yourequations.com. Sounds very Web2.0, but it works!

\mathbf{Proof.\mbox{ }}\mathrm{ By\mbox{ }example:} \sum_{n\in\mathbm{N}} p. \mbox{ }\Box
Now that was one one-liner! Two problems remain: in-line (in-text) LaTeX symbols (this script requires the use of <pre> tags, which, by definition, open a new line) and the fact that I have to first publish the post, before I see the results.

I had hoped to take Blogspot's lacking LaTeX support as an excuse to roll out my own server and CMS. Meh, now I'll have to find another reason.

Like, nicer fonts in the equations, using my favorite font package. Yes, that's it!

#### Update:

Reading the source code, it may be possible to do in-line \LaTeX{} after all. Yeah. Just use the <code> tags instead.

Now you can expect to see several posts that have been rotting in my drafts section for a while due to lack of formula support. Let's just hope I don't promis you too much.

DrNI@CLB said...

Still looks funny in my feedreader. I guess formulas in HTML are the same evil issue as SVG embedding is: there are several solutions and none of them is what you really want.

No doubt it'll look awfully funny in your feedreader. In fact, it looks the same in my "Preview" function: I only see the LaTeX code. The key is the footer of this very page (of the front page, no less!) If you scroll down, you'll see a stale element, empty, just being there. This one contains the directive to load the JavaScript code that enables the processing of formulae.

As ugly hacks go, this is quite a good example of one. But it's better than nothing.

ke said...

As a passionate feed reader user, I still think it is a valid excuse to roll your own server. :-)

Damn you. Yes I'm also a feed reader addict. But I don't read my own blog, of course.
Anyway, I use a command-line feed reader, so I wouldn't care one or the other way - LaTeX formulae would have to be displayed using images, and I'd have to head over to the blog itself anyway.
Well, but that project I was thinking of is still there somewhere. It probably won't happen before the winter break though. I was thinking on basing it on git, happs and maybe Gitit. Support for Markdown & LaTeX syntax. Let's see if it will become reality someday.