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Pettry rendered LaTeX equations using PHP

When I was writing a simple scientific webapp, during my undergrads studies, I needed to generate some equations to be shown by the app. I was already familiar with LaTeX equation formatting syntax, so I decided to use this nice peace of software.

So, after "googling" a little, I found the imgtex, written by Koji Nakamaru, which is a fast CGI script, written in perl. What I did, was port it to PHP.

To run it, you must have a LaTeX distribution and the dvipng software both installed on the same machine which you will run the PHP script.

Here is the PHP code:


To use this code, you just have to pass the LaTeX commands through GET to the PHP. For example,
adding the following string to your URL:

http://localhost/imgtex.php?res=300&cmd=x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{-4ac}}{2a}

The res variable sets the resolution for the generated image and the cmd specifies the LaTeX command. This way, the above URL will produce the following image:

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Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 28, 2010 at 1:20 AM

    Thanks, very helpful!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJune 10, 2010 at 12:09 AM

    Hi, do you mind posting more detailed instructions? I don't understand how to use this. What should I write before the PHP script (as it is incomplete at the beginning)? Do I define $res = $_GET["res"];?

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Filipi ViannaJune 14, 2010 at 12:07 PM

    Hi Jasper,

    Here is the full source for imgtex.php at my personal homepage.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJune 14, 2010 at 8:06 PM

    Thanks! So I just include it in my directory and call it when I need, as long as I have LaTeX and dvipng?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Filipi ViannaJune 22, 2011 at 4:18 PM

    Now on pastbin:
    http://pastebin.com/e7fTx6g7

    ReplyDelete

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