# Request to Add LaTeX on PeakD for Mathematical Formulas and Equations

While PeakD.com is a great site with many capabilities for publishers, I think one big feature would be the ability to add LaTeX text presentation. This is especially important for mathematical symbols, formulas, and equations.

This will help PeakD, as well as the broader Hive community, compete with the likes of WordPress, which also has support for LaTeX: https://wordpress.com/support/latex/

Just thought I would make this post in hopes of catching some interest from the PeakD developers. It may even warrant a Hive Fund Proposal.

Let me know your thoughts and if you can help make this happen!

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I know that this has been discussed on the discord channel of @steemstem in the past too. Great idea!

PeakD is just one of many interfaces for the Hive Blockchain. For example this post is displayed on Hive.Blog, StemGeeks.net and other interfaces.

Anything added to PeakD has to be added to all of the interfaces.

last year (edited)

The other interfaces don't have to add everything PeakD adds. However, they may choose to do so to compete with PeakD. I mentioned PeakD specifically because I use it the most.

Authors can run their Latex through things like Quick Latex which renders the code as a png. The example on their home page rendered the code:

    \begin{align*}
x^2 + y^2 &= 1 \\
y &= \sqrt{1 - x^2}
\end{align*}


as

The generated png has a transparent background. It is probably wise to edit it and add your own background.

Several big problem comes with supporting .tex . As I understand, to display an embedded .tex file as an image, one has to download an extension. So, you would have to get all of the PeakD users to install the extension.

BTW, I think it would be great for PeakD to include support for SVG. SVG allows javascript; so there are probably security reasons for excluding it.

All those steps don't make it very easy when writing posts that contain equations imho. It works with some markdown tools, browsers can handle it too.

I think if it is embedded in one frontend others will follow at some point. They can probably use a large chunk of the implementation.

But yeah, I don't about the in-depth technicalities.

It is both surprising and sad that there is not a widely accepted equation display language. HTML includes the MathML standard. I find the language awkward. PeakD strips the tags. Not all browsers support the language.

I recall that Mathematica has a markup language which is proprietary to Wolfram.

I was able to mark up equations using raw PDF, but haven't done so for a long time.

LaTeX had some weird proprietary stuff and you have to agree to the LaTeX license .

I used to lament that there was not a good display language for equations until one day I realized that I prefer seeing equations in text format. When I need to display an equation I use SVG or just create a PNG.

I found another LaTeX to PNG site. Latex2png.com lets me change the color and size of the PNG, but it still uses a transparent background. Some people us PeakD in light mode, others use it in dark mode. Light blue might show up on both sites:

Nice, the blue color is a good option! I was also struggling with the background colors in previous posts...