Texoid

Python server for LaTeX math rendering to SVG and PNG. It is lightweight and perfect for embedding LaTeX documents into webpages, without the hassle of rendering the documents yourself.

Installation

Texoid is super simple to set up and use.

$ pip install texoid

Texoid uses texbox, a Docker image built for converting LaTeX documents to SVG and PNG securely, without exposing your system to malicious LaTeX code. To use Texoid with texbox, install Docker.

Alternatively, Texoid can directly use LaTeX to render documents to DVI format, dvisvgm to convert to SVGs, and ImageMagick to convert SVGs into PNGs. On a typical Debian or Ubuntu machine, you can the dependencies for this with:

$ apt-get install texlive-latex-base texlive-binaries imagemagick

Running Texoid

With Docker

To run Texoid with Docker, simply run the following command with a user in the docker group:

$ texoid --port=<port> --docker

This will automatically pull the latest texbox image and start using it.

Without Docker

To start the Texoid without Docker, use:

$ export LATEX_BIN=<path to latex>
$ export DVISVGM_BIN=<path to dvisvgm>
$ export CONVERT_BIN=<path to convert>
$ texoid --port=<port>

The environment variables are not necessary if the respective executables are present in $PATH. Here, convert refers to ImageMagick's convert tool.

Using Texoid

Texoid expects POST body to contain the LaTeX document to render. You should send the request with an appropriate Content-Type, for example, text/plain, application/x-tex, or text/x-tex. Do not use application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

Texoid also has a legacy API. This API uses application/x-www-form-urlencoded as Content-Type, and sends the LaTeX code form-encoded in the q field.

Response

The response will always contain a boolean field, success.

If success is true:

• svg will contain the SVG source of the rendered document
• png will contain a base64-encoded binary PNG file
• meta will be a dict containing two entries:
  • width, the width of the rendered document in pixels
  • height, the height of the rendered document, again in pixels
  • these arguments are what the SVG/PNGs generated should be sized by to display properly in webpages

If success is false, the response will contain an error field with the LaTeX error output.

Examples

In these examples, a Texoid server is assumed to be running on localhost, port 8888. We will be rendering a simple LaTeX document:

\documentclass{standalone}
\begin{document}
$E=mc^2$
\end{document}

A successful render

$ curl -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' --data-raw '\documentclass{standalone}\begin{document}$E=mc^2$\end{document}' localhost:8888
{
    "success": true,
    "svg": "<?xml version='1.0'?><svg...</svg>",
    "png": "iVBORw0KGgoA...RK5CYII=",
    "meta": {
        "width": "48", 
        "height": "10"
    }
}

A malformed request

$ curl -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' --data 'malformed' localhost:8888
{
    "success": false,
    "error": "This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.15...LaTeX Error: Missing \\begin{document}..."
}

And that's it!