LaTeX in GitHub Readmes and Blogs
One challenge I have come across in my time at Metis and in writing blog posts is how to type mathematical expressions.
I am familiar with LaTeX from undergrad math and science classes, and I figured there must be a way to use that typesetting system on blogs.
Here is a quick summary of what I’ve learned from reading other resources on this topic (cited below).
LaTeX in Jekyll Blogs
To get LaTeX working in Jekyll blogs, we can use MathJax, which is a JavaScript library that displays mathematical notation in web browsers. (Jupyter notebook uses this too.)
To add MathJax, go the the \_layouts folder of your repo, and find the default.html file. Then, inside the <head> tag add the following:
<script type=“text/javascript" src=“http://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS-MML_HTMLorMML”></script>
Now you can type LaTeX pretty much normally, but with delimiters $$...$$ or \\(…\\) for inline math, and \\[…\\] for block math.
An example
$$\frac{1}{1+\sin(x)}$$ in markdown becomes
LaTeX in GitHub Readmes
Unfortunately, it is by design that you cannot use MathJax in GitHub readmes. So, we need a workaround. The best one I have found is to use websites like codecogs or sciweavers.
Basically, you type the expressions you want into the websites, they generate an image of the math, and you can then download it and add it to your readme, or link to the image.