Is there any small and simple program (or even library) that can render LaTeX locally as you type?
I'm looking for something pretty much like this page, which auto-renders immediately as you type, except that it:
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Must not need any internet connection
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Should be as "lightweight" as possible (it shouldn't even depend on a browser, if that can be avoided… a standalone executable would be ideal)
(The goal is to avoid going having to go through the pain of creating LaTeX documents every time you want to write a little expression to paste somewhere else, but without needing an internet connection or another program to run it.)
If there is even a C/C++-compatible library that could convert a basic LaTeX equation to a PNG file (or SVG or whatever), that would be fine too; I could write a front-end for it pretty easily.
Best Answer
The website you point to is using MathJax to render the LaTeX. If you don't mind using a browser, then you can simply download MathJax, unpack the zip file, go into the test subfolder and open
sample-dynamic.html
in your browser. This is effectively an equation editor. You can make a custom web page to cater to your needs.Note: As it is this requires you to hit the return key to render. That should be simple enough to alter. Grabbing the equation as a PNG could be a little more complex to achieve.