How to support latex in GitHub-pages?

The easiest way to do this right now is to use the KaTeX auto-render extension.

Simply drop the following into your <head>:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/katex.min.css" integrity="sha384-yFRtMMDnQtDRO8rLpMIKrtPCD5jdktao2TV19YiZYWMDkUR5GQZR/NOVTdquEx1j" crossorigin="anonymous">
<script defer src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/katex.min.js" integrity="sha384-9Nhn55MVVN0/4OFx7EE5kpFBPsEMZxKTCnA+4fqDmg12eCTqGi6+BB2LjY8brQxJ" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script defer src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/contrib/auto-render.min.js" integrity="sha384-kWPLUVMOks5AQFrykwIup5lo0m3iMkkHrD0uJ4H5cjeGihAutqP0yW0J6dpFiVkI" crossorigin="anonymous" onload="renderMathInElement(document.body);"></script>

Note that this assumes the following delimiters appear in your HTML:

$$\LaTeX code$$   (for display)
\\[\LaTeX code\\] (also for display)
\\(\LaTeX code\\) (for inline)

Note, if using Jekyll, you will need to have the following in your _config.yml:

markdown: kramdown
kramdown:
    math_engine: katex

WARNING: Do not use math_engine: mathjax. It will break this by automatically removing the LaTeX delimiters.


Unfortunately most answers here are outdated nowadays. Github renders your markdown files using kramdown . Annoyingly kramdown defines math content differently from other markdown variants. In kramdown inline math is written using $$ as delimiter like text $$ E = mc^2 $$ text. Display math is also written using $$ delimiter, but it must be separated from the text by a blank line

text

$$\begin{aligned}
E = mc^2
\end{aligned}$$

text

Kramdown will render the inline math as \( E = mc^2 \) and the display math as

\[\begin{aligned}
E = mc^2
\end{aligned}\]

in your output HTML. These are also the delimiters used by mathjax as default. Therefore to configure MathJax 3 for github pages it is enough to add

<script id="MathJax-script" async src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-mml-chtml.js"></script>

to the file _includes/head-custom.html. You don't need to create or modify the _config.yml file.

I recommend you to use MathJax 3 over KaTeX, because MathJax 3 is not much slower anymore than KaTeX (see https://www.intmath.com/cg5/katex-mathjax-comparison.php) and supports more features (E.g. KaTex cannot handle \label and \eqref (see https://github.com/KaTeX/KaTeX/issues/2003))

If you still want to use https://katex.org/docs/autorender.html you must add

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/katex.min.css" integrity="sha384-ZPe7yZ91iWxYumsBEOn7ieg8q/o+qh/hQpSaPow8T6BwALcXSCS6C6fSRPIAnTQs" crossorigin="anonymous">
<script defer src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/katex.min.js" integrity="sha384-ljao5I1l+8KYFXG7LNEA7DyaFvuvSCmedUf6Y6JI7LJqiu8q5dEivP2nDdFH31V4" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script defer src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/contrib/auto-render.min.js" integrity="sha384-+XBljXPPiv+OzfbB3cVmLHf4hdUFHlWNZN5spNQ7rmHTXpd7WvJum6fIACpNNfIR" crossorigin="anonymous"
    onload="renderMathInElement(document.body);"></script>

to the file _includes/head-custom.html. You don't need to create or modify the _config.yml file.

Note: I tried to use github flavored markdown renderer instead of the default renderer for github pages by setting markdown: GFM in the the _config.yml file. This would give you additional features like autolinks ( see https://github.community/t/github-pages-autolinks-fail/129713/4 ) and the more common $ delimiter for inline math and $$ delimiter for display math (https://github.blog/2022-05-19-math-support-in-markdown/) as it is supported by https://pandoc.org/. However the GFM markdown renderer from github has still many, many problems with math section making it unusable (https://nschloe.github.io/2022/05/20/math-on-github.html).


Since resources online have changed regarding this question, here's an update on supporting LateX with GitHub Pages.

Note that the closest to Latex rendering without exporting as images and natively supporting it on your Jekyll site would be to use MathJax.

MathJax is actually recommended in Jekyllrb docs for math support, with Kramdown, it also converts it from LaTeX to PNG, more details on it here at the Kramdown documentation

Option 1: Write your equation in MathURL and embed it.

You could write the equation with MathURL, then generate a url that permanently points to the equation, and display this in an <iframe> tag. However, this will stop working if MathURL goes offline.

Option 2: Implement jsMath

jsMath will allow almost LateX like syntax and will be supported in your blog if you have set it up correctly, there is extensive documentation on this.

Option 3: Mathjax (by far the easiest in my opinion)

Many sites have mentioned that Mathjax is considered a successor of jsMath, and is much easier to implement with Jekyll. MathJax is also used by mathematics.stackexchange.com too!

  • Step 1: Have your site load the script in sites where you want to display math. (usually done in the header)

  • Optional: Check your markdown parser in _config.yml. redcarpet or kramdown is suggested in this example. Certain parsers like discount will interfere with the syntax but I have a solution below.

  • Step 2: Write your equations.

Quoting this tutorial by Gaston Sanchez:

MathJax does not have the exactly same behavior as LaTeX. By default, the tex2jax preprocessor defines the LaTeX math delimiters, which are \(...\) for in-line math, and \[...\] for displayed equations. It also defines the TeX delimiters $$...$$ for displayed equations, but it does not define $...$ as in-line math delimiters.

Read the documentation on the syntax for more details.

  • Note: Using the raw liquid tag to ensure Markdown parsers do not interfere with MathJax syntax.
  • While you could escape backslashes (e.g. \\[ \frac{1}{n^{2}} \\])to ensure they are parsed properly, as described by Chistopher Poole's tutorial, this is not always intuitive and looks complicated. A simpler solution would be to use the raw liquid tag to ensure the text is ignored by the Markdown processor and directly output as a static html. This is done with {% raw %}and also {% endraw %}

Here is a code sample:

 {% raw %}
  $$a^2 + b^2 = c^2$$ --> note that all equations between these tags will not need escaping! 
 {% endraw %}

Lastly also ensure that the fonts support displaying LateX as some have issues like font size being too small. Alternatively here are some additional methods like Google Charts and MathML discussed in the latex StackExchange sister site.


If you used Jekyll in your GitHub pages, you can add

  <script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
    MathJax.Hub.Config({
      tex2jax: {
        skipTags: ['script', 'noscript', 'style', 'textarea', 'pre'],
        inlineMath: [['$','$']]
      }
    });
  </script>
  <script src="https://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS-MML_HTMLorMML" type="text/javascript"></script>

in the file _includes/head.html, and then your GitHub Pages site will support MathJax

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