MathJax V.S. QuickLaTeX?
If you look at the Pressbooks Plugins tab in the dashboard of your book, you’ll see a plugin called WP QuickLaTeX.
- QuickLaTeX allows you to render LaTeX as SVG images.
- MathJax is a JavaScript display engine that turns math markup written in LaTeX, MathML, or AsciiMath into high-resolution, accessible equations.
While both of these plugins can be used to render LaTeX equations, there are key differences between them, a few of which are noted in the table below.
| Feature | MathJax | QuickLaTeX |
|---|---|---|
| Notation | Notation methods include [latex]…[/latex] and $$…$$ |
Notation methods include [latex]…[/latex], $$…$$, $…$, (…) and […] |
| Accessibility | Has advanced accessibility features, such as the ability to collapse math, explore it in detail, and zoom in to a custom level. In the webbook, can easily view an expression’s original LaTeX markup | Renders LaTeX as images with the original commands as alt text, which is not easily readable by humans (especially those unfamiliar with LaTeX) |
We use MathJax, as it has far superior accessibility features to QuickLaTeX.
Importing Math Content
When importing content from other books, you may notice “[latexpage]” tags. These books used the QuickLaTeX plugin to render LaTeX, and “[latexpage]” is necessary to put at the beginning of a page in Pressbooks in order to alert the plugin to the fact that there is LaTeX on the page that should be rendered.
If you are using MathJax to render LaTeX, then “[latexpage]” is not necessary. But if you are drawing on BCcampus OpenStax imports written using QuickLaTeX, be aware that not all of the code may be compatible with MathJax.
Math Import Example
- Copy from Pressbooks: Import which had QuickLatex enabled works if we enabled QuickLatex but it is slow to respond. MathJax is the preferred method now. If we turn off the QuickLatex plugin the math no longer works for some reason.
- Importing the Word: does not work.
- Copy and pasting from Word: does not work
- Importing from URL: math works, but the formatting is terrible and the pictures did not import.
- Copying from the website – the images and math load properly but the formatting is terrible.
“What is the difference between MathJax and QuickLaTeX?” from Pressbooks Guide by OER Production Team is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
