Search code examples
latexmarkdownofflinemathjaxmkdocs

Displaying mathematical formulas in markdown without external CDN?


Background

We are merging documentation written in LaTeX and MS Word towards markdown (for the well-known advantages). We have a static intranet site creating mkdocs. My predecessors decided for MathJax, but this stopped working at the moment MathJax CDN was shut down, but the customer only realized that with some delay. In the meantime, the intranet is now totally disconnected from the outside world by our customer (whose formulas should stay behind the fence). Using a different MathJax CDN is therefore no longer an option.

The Challenge

Which options do we have to render the formulas? Rendering LaTeX formulas on the fly using a complete LaTeX installation (similar to http://quicklatex.com/) is not too complicated to set up - except that we do not get the permission to do so.

Can we stick with MathJax? How do we argue that it is simple to run MathJax running without connecting to the CDN? Is there any other solution to render simple mathematical formulas with mkdocs?

Remark

I used the tag latex and MathJax on purpose (even though it is not strictly latex- and MathJax-related) since I appreciate your creative ideas on how to render formulas fast, easy and secure.

Related questions


Solution

  • Since many of our clients prefer M$ Word, we decided for the simple and easy-to-argue solution: We keep a Word-document with all formulas in a SharePoint, and we screen-grab them for the use with mkdocs.

    This solution is not elegant, but it serves the purpose of being secure and easy to maintain. The management decided that a basic mkdocs-installation can be expected from the client-IT-service, any additional plugins are considered too much overhead.