LaTeX Equation Editor

Why I Built This LaTeX Equation Editor

Most online LaTeX editors are frustrating. They’re either too basic (just a text box and a render button) or way too complex (full document editors when you just need one equation). I wanted something in between.

This editor solves a specific problem. You need a mathematical equation. You need it fast. And you need to export it as an image you can actually use somewhere.

That’s it. No 47-step setup. No account creation. No downloading software that takes 2GB of disk space.

Type your LaTeX, see the preview, download your image. Done.

Who Actually Needs a LaTeX Editor?

More people than you’d think.

Teachers create worksheets and need clean equations that don’t look like they were made in MS Paint. Students work on presentations and papers where the built-in equation editors just don’t cut it. Researchers prepare figures for publication where journals demand specific formatting. Content creators make educational videos and need overlay graphics. Developers write documentation with mathematical notation.

I’ve talked to all these people. They all say the same thing. They don’t want to learn a full typesetting system. They just want their equation to look professional.

LaTeX is the gold standard for mathematical typography. It’s what academic journals use. It’s what textbooks use. There’s a reason for that. The output is beautiful. Fractions align properly. Integral signs have the right proportions. Greek letters look like they should.

But learning LaTeX from scratch is a commitment. This editor bridges that gap. You get LaTeX quality without needing to become a LaTeX expert.

How to Write LaTeX (The Quick Version)

If you’ve never written LaTeX before, here’s what you need to know.

LaTeX uses backslash commands for special symbols and structures. Want a fraction? Type \frac{numerator}{denominator}. Want a square root? Type \sqrt{whatever}. Greek letters are just their names with a backslash. Alpha is \alpha. Pi is \pi. Theta is \theta.

The curly braces {} group things together. They tell LaTeX what belongs where. If you want x squared, you write x^{2}. The caret means superscript, and the braces contain what goes up there.

Subscripts work the same way but with an underscore. So x sub 1 is x_{1}.

That’s honestly 80% of what most people need. Fractions, roots, exponents, subscripts, and Greek letters. Master those five things and you can write most common equations.

The symbol palette above the editor exists because nobody remembers every LaTeX command. Click the symbol you want. It inserts the code for you. Cursor placement is automatic.

Making the Most of the Symbol Categories

I organized the symbols into eight categories because scrolling through 200 buttons is annoying.

The Common category has your everyday stuff. Fractions, roots, sums, integrals, infinity symbols. These are the symbols you’ll reach for constantly.

Greek Letters are self-explanatory. Both lowercase (alpha through omega) and uppercase versions (Gamma, Delta, Sigma, etc.). Physics and engineering folks live in this category.

Operators covers things like union, intersection, logical operators, and different types of multiplication symbols. Set theory and logic problems need these.

Relations handles equals, not equals, less than, greater than, subset symbols, and element-of notation. Proofs and inequalities require these constantly.

Arrows gives you every direction and style. Single arrows, double arrows, implies arrows, maps-to arrows. Useful for showing transformations and logical implications.

Structures is where the complex stuff lives. Matrices, cases (for piecewise functions), brackets of all types, overbrace and underbrace. When you need multi-line or grouped expressions, look here.

Accents lets you put hats, bars, dots, tildes, and vectors over letters. Also includes different font styles like bold, italic, calligraphic, and blackboard bold.

Functions has the standard math function names. Sine, cosine, log, limit, max, min. These render in proper upright font instead of italics, which is the correct typographic convention.

The Templates Save Real Time

I included 16 equation templates because certain formulas come up constantly.

The quadratic formula. The Pythagorean theorem. Euler’s identity. Derivative notation. Integral notation. Matrix structures. Piecewise functions.

Click one. It loads into the editor. Modify it for your specific needs.

This is faster than typing from scratch every time. And it teaches you the LaTeX syntax for complex structures by example. See how a matrix is coded. Understand the pattern. Apply it to your own matrices.

Export Options That Actually Work

The export section gives you control that most free tools don’t offer.

Scale determines resolution. 1x is 72 DPI, fine for web use. 2x is 144 DPI, good for most purposes. 3x and 4x are for print quality or when you need to crop and zoom.

Background can be transparent (for overlays), white (for documents), black (for dark mode content), or a custom color you pick.

Text color lets you match your destination. White text on transparent background works great for video overlays. Black text on white is standard for documents.

Padding adds breathing room around your equation. Zero padding means tight cropping. Higher values give more margin.

PNG is the format you’ll use most often. It works everywhere. Every presentation software, every document editor, every website accepts PNG files.

SVG is vector format. It scales infinitely without pixelation. Great for responsive web design or when you’re not sure what final size you need. The file size is typically smaller too.

Copy to Clipboard puts the equation image directly on your clipboard. Paste straight into your document without saving a file first. This is the fastest workflow for one-off equations.

Copy LaTeX gives you the raw code. Useful when you’re working in a system that supports LaTeX natively and you just needed this editor to check your syntax visually.

The History Feature Remembers Your Work

Every equation you export gets saved to your browser’s local storage.

This matters more than you’d think. You create an equation. Use it in your document. A week later, you need a slight variation. Instead of retyping the whole thing, click it in history. Modify. Export.

The history persists across browser sessions. Close your browser, come back tomorrow, your equations are still there.

I limited it to 20 entries. Old ones drop off as new ones come in. If you need permanent storage for important equations, I’d recommend keeping a text file with your LaTeX code.

Real World Use Cases

Let me share how people actually use tools like this.

A math teacher creates a worksheet in Google Docs. The built-in equation editor is painfully slow and the output looks mediocre. Instead, they type equations here, export as PNG, and insert as images. The whole worksheet gets done in a fraction of the time and looks dramatically better.

A graduate student writes their thesis in Word (I know, but some universities require it). Word’s equation editor handles simple stuff but chokes on complex notation. They use this editor for the hard equations and paste them in as images.

A YouTube creator makes calculus tutorials. They need equation overlays for their video editing software. Transparent PNG export at 3x scale gives them crisp graphics that work perfectly over their video footage.

A developer writes technical documentation. Their markdown renderer doesn’t support LaTeX natively. They generate equation images and host them inline. The readers get properly rendered math without any client-side rendering requirements.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Forgetting curly braces is the number one syntax error. x^10 renders as x to the power of 1, followed by a zero. You wanted x^{10} which gives you x to the tenth power.

Nested structures need matching braces. A fraction inside a square root needs careful brace management. \sqrt{\frac{a}{b}} puts the fraction inside the root. Miss one brace and everything breaks.

The live preview catches these errors immediately. Watch it as you type. Red error messages tell you exactly where the problem is.

Spacing in LaTeX is different from normal typing. Multiple spaces collapse into one. If you need explicit space, use commands like \, for thin space or \quad for larger spacing.

What This Editor Won’t Do

I built this for single equations and short expressions. It’s not a full LaTeX document editor.

You can’t write multi-page documents here. You can’t include figures or tables. You can’t manage bibliographies or cross-references.

For those tasks, you need Overleaf or a local LaTeX installation. Different tools for different jobs.

This editor does one thing well. Fast, clean equation images with proper LaTeX typography. Nothing more, nothing less.

Start With Something Simple

If you’ve never used LaTeX before, try this. Type E = mc^{2} in the editor. Watch it render. Now try a^{2} + b^{2} = c^{2}. Then try a fraction with \frac{1}{2}.

Build from there. Click symbols you don’t know. See what they produce. Load templates and modify them.

The learning curve is gentler than you’d expect. Within an hour, you’ll be producing equations that look better than anything you’ve made before.