Show HN: LaTerM: LaTeX renderer for terminal AI tools

https://github.com/MaxwellsEquation/LaTerM

by viktoreu4_ • 10 months ago

4 2 10 months ago

It can be annoying to use tools like Codex or Claude Code to edit scientific notes as they don't render LaTeX natively. I have fixed this issue. The performance seems good though it requires you to to use a terminal emulator which supports typescript which is admittedly gross. I have implemented this also as an Obsidian plugin at https://github.com/MaxwellsEquation/LaTerM-obsidian

denis_dolya• 10 months ago

Interesting approach. Rendering LaTeX directly in the terminal lowers friction for math-heavy workflows, especially in REPL environments or when working remotely without GUI support. It’s lightweight and demonstrates clear technical creativity.

On the downside, the terminal was never designed for this use case. Performance, portability, and long-term maintainability are questionable. Existing ecosystems like Jupyter or MathJax already solve this problem in a more standardized way. This makes the project more of a niche tool or proof of concept rather than something broadly adoptable.

viktoreu4_• 10 months ago

Certainly true. I just found the desire for this tool myself and then decided to publish the code. For a specific sort of workflow, such as in Obsidian or VSCode, I hope someone may find it useful.