I suppose you could write a package that compiles equations in subjobs, like so (call this package imageeqn.sty):
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}[1994/12/01]
\ProvidesPackage{imageeqn}[2014/11/30 v0.1 Image equations]
\RequirePackage{graphicx}
\newwrite\@out
\newcounter{imageeqn}
\begingroup \catcode `|=0 \catcode `[=1
\catcode`]=2 \catcode `\{=12 \catcode `\}=12
\catcode`\\=12 |gdef|@ximageeqn#1\end{imageeqn}[|immediate|write|@out[#1]|end[imageeqn]]
|endgroup
\def\imageeqn{\kernel@ifnextchar [{\@imageeqn}{\@imageeqn[]}}
\def\@imageeqn[#1]{%
\stepcounter{imageeqn}
\immediate\openout\@out=\jobname-eqn-\arabic{imageeqn}.tex
\immediate\write\@out{\noexpand\documentclass[convert={density=288,outext=.png}]{standalone}}
\immediate\write\@out{\noexpand\usepackage{amsmath}}
\immediate\write\@out{\noexpand\begin{document}}
\immediate\write\@out{\noexpand$}
\newlinechar='15
\begingroup \catcode`\^^M=12 %
\let\do\@makeother\dospecials\obeyspaces%
\@ximageeqn}
\def\endimageeqn{%
\endgroup%
\immediate\write\@out{\noexpand$}
\immediate\write\@out{\noexpand\end{document}}
\immediate\closeout\@out
\immediate\write18{pdflatex --enable-write18 -interaction=nonstopmode \jobname-eqn-\arabic{imageeqn}.tex}
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[scale=0.25]{\jobname-eqn-\arabic{imageeqn}.png}
\end{center}}
This package (which I wrote by modifying python.sty) defines an environment imageeqn, which takes the equation inside of it, generates a tex file, compiles it to png, and then includes the resulting png using \includegraphics. This can be used as follows (let's call this file image.tex):
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{imageeqn}
\begin{document}
Pythagorean theorem:
\begin{imageeqn}x^2 + y^2 = z^2.\end{imageeqn}
Some integral:
\begin{imageeqn}\Gamma(t) = \int_0^\infty x^{t-1} e^{-x} \, dx.\end{imageeqn}
\end{document}
Compile this with the command line:
pdflatex --enable-write18 image.tex
The result is a pdf file that has the two equations embedded as rasterized images. I'm not sure why you would ever want to do this, but I enjoyed myself trying to figure out how to do this anyway :)
This implementation is pretty limited by the way: first of all, it won't compile if you put \end{imageeqn} on a new line. Second of all, it turns equations into text-style math (in dollar signs), so equation numbering, aligning, etc., are not supported.
Solving the newline problem
The first problem can be fixed, at least on Linux, by preprocessing the subjobs with sed. This can be done by replacing:
\immediate\write18{pdflatex --enable-write18 -interaction=nonstopmode \jobname-eqn-\arabic{imageeqn}.tex}
in the above code by:
\immediate\write18{sed -i '/^$/d' \jobname-eqn-\arabic{imageeqn}.tex; pdflatex --enable-write18 -interaction=nonstopmode \jobname-eqn-\arabic{imageeqn}.tex}
Using preprocessing to make \[, \begin{equation} work
Making \[, \], \begin{equation}, \end{equation} work can be done by preprocessing the input with sed:
cat input.tex | sed 's|\\\[|\begin{imageeqn}|g' \
| sed 's|\\\]|\end{imageeqn}|g' \
| sed 's|\\begin{equation}|\begin{imageeqn}|g' \
| sed 's|\\end{equation}|\end{imageeqn}|g' \
> input2.tex
pdflatex --enable-write18 input2.tex
Perhaps lualatex may be of help here, but I don't know anything about that.
Best Answer
The error you're receiving is that
thesis.clsis not available. This stems from\documentclass{thesis}. My assumption is that, since you're unfamiliar with (La)TeX, you just assumed that if you want to write a thesis, you should usethesisas your\documentclass. However, this is obviously incorrect since the default distributions (MiKTeX and TeX Live) do not come with athesis.clsby default. Instead, start with something likereportorbook. Then click on Quick Build to compile the document, after which you can View PDF.