For several years, I’ve used MathJax on this blog to typeset mathematical formulae in LaTeX notation. MathJax is fully compatible with LaTeX, and makes it simple to create beautifully typeset equations such as the following:

$\rho = \frac{1}{2} \left( \sqrt{2} \sqrt{\lambda+2} + \sqrt{2} \sqrt{ \frac{ -2 \lambda - \lambda^2 + \sqrt{2} \sqrt{\lambda+2}}{\lambda+2}} \right)$

MathJax is sophisticated, but it’s large and has a lot of dependencies. It’s not slow, but KaTeX is a lightweight drop-in replacement that’s even faster. I’ve switched to use KaTeX on this blog for speed and simplicity.

MathJax can be loaded from a CDN, but my website is hosted on a CDN anyway, and I prefer to “vendor” my dependencies and avoid too many external dependencies. I found that it was a little bit of a chore to get MathJax vendored into my website’s repository, and in so doing, I discovered how large the project really is. It has a lot of files, fonts, and so on. KaTeX is much smaller.

MathJax is simple to install, despite its size. If you’re using it from a CDN, it’s a one-line <script> tag in the web page’s header. Then you can just write LaTeX—sorry, that’s $$\LaTeX$$—in your page’s source. MathJax makes the rest happen magically.

KaTeX is slightly more involved. You have to include a JavaScript file in the page, as well as a CSS file, and then set up the page to look for LaTeX typesetting and render it. (MathJax does this automatically). Still, three lines of setup isn’t bad.

When I did this, at first I was disappointed. An equation that should have been rendered nicely, as MathJax did, wasn’t. Here’s the MathJax equation:

Here’s how it initially rendered with KaTeX:

I opened the browser’s inspector tools to check, and found that some fonts hadn’t loaded. I quickly realized I needed to vendor in the JS, CSS, and fonts. After doing this, the results were satisfactory:

If you look closely, you can see some minor differences in aspects such as font weights and spacing.

My takeaway is this:

• Use MathJax if you need broader compatibility across every conceivable browser and output format, more sophisticated features such as the ability to interact with the equations in the browser, and absolutely perfect rendering.
• KaTeX might be right for you if you value a more compact and speedy library, and you don’t mind ever-so-slightly different typography or less support for uncommon browsers.

Both libraries are extraordinary works of engineering and I thank the authors and supporters.

How to Extract Content From a PDF

Here are easy, free ways to extract text and images from PDFs on Mac OS.

Temporal Words Are Risky

I avoid using many time-related words in writing, because they can be ambiguous and cause problems.

Writing Kindly

Some of my rash writing has taught me better, more effective ways to say things.