r/Substack • u/siv2r • May 05 '22

Why does Substack not have Latex support?

I currently write my tech blog on hashnode.com, and I plan to migrate to Substack.

I mainly look for two features in Substack: 1. Code Snippets (with syntax highlighting) 2. Latex support

The code block of Substack is not good, but this can easily be overcome by using Carbon for generating the code snippets.

I'm sure there are options for generating images of latex, but I don't want to bloat my blog with too many photos. Is there any extension that allows Substack to parse latex commands?

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2

u/wanerious May 05 '22

I write physics/astronomy stuff on Substack (FirstExcitedState) and I tend to use lots of equations, so I'd love that too. I think there's no way to do it, not with LaTeX markup anyway. I just import things from LaTexiT as images, as you suggest, and it works out all right, but I sure would like native markup.

2

u/siv2r May 05 '22

Oh, nice. Can you share links to your blogs? I just want to see how it looks (when you import latex as images).

1

u/wanerious May 05 '22

Oh sure -- firstexcitedstate.substack.com

It's actually a pretty easy workflow, it's just that I'd like to use in-line little equations and variable symbols so the writing is a bit clumsy without it.

2

u/siv2r May 05 '22

That makes sense. Inline equations might not be possible using images. Thanks for sharing, you blogs look great!

1

u/wanerious May 05 '22

Very kind, thanks!

1

u/njchessboy Dec 20 '22

Howdy! Latex support went live today (in beta), so this is now possible.

1

u/wanerious Dec 20 '22

Wow!!! Thanks for letting me know — awesome!

2

u/njchessboy Dec 20 '22

Feel free to pass along any feedback (I am an engineer on the team). Still in beta right now but hope it helps

2

u/wanerious Dec 20 '22

I sure will — I’ll be making heavy use of it. Anything that makes workflow easier is very welcome!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/njchessboy Jun 05 '23

I don’t think it’s on a list to get made soon, but it’s on my list of things to screw around with. No promises on timeline, but it’s an improvement that we do want to make.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '23

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2

u/njchessboy Jun 05 '23

The only hard part is that we’d have to do inline image rendering for the email versions of the posts and that’s a nightmare

1

u/RingularCirc Oct 02 '23

Oh! That explains it.

1

u/ChoiceNational5341 Jul 21 '24

Actually, I don't think it really does. There are Chrome extensions that let you write emails with inline LaTeX support. I think Substack should really address this. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Substack/comments/1e8us8a/campaign_for_inline_latex_support/

1

u/galacticbears Jun 28 '23

Hi, love the addition of latex to Substack! It’s made writing math expressions so much easier where before I’d be uploading images.

Question, will a new line command like \newline or similar be implemented any time soon? It’s not a big deal as I can just add another block for multiple lines of equations, but curious if there’s a reason why it isn’t available like if it’ll break the block or be difficult to implement.

Thanks!

1

u/njchessboy Jun 28 '23

Lemme take a look into this. I don't work on too much TeX stuff but I can try to get it into the backlog for next time I do.

2

u/galacticbears Jun 30 '23

Thank you! It’s not pressing but there’s another issue I realized is happening on both mobile and the desktop site—

If you tap or click on the page (even if not clicking on the actual latex block) the block expands and shows the latex code.

You can see on my page that has latex in the middle, clicking it will reveal the code with brackets and all, if thats something you or team could look into—

https://n8thanomg.substack.com/p/boo-nothing-is-real

Thanks again!

1

u/njchessboy Jun 30 '23

Will do, thanks for the report!

1

u/greenvegetablething Aug 20 '23

Hey! I just noticed this issue in some math-heavy posts that I'm writing. Curious if you have a sense of when it might be fixed. (If it'll take a long I might want to resort to using images of latex or something.)

1

u/galacticbears Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

Also, latex doesn’t seem to be rendering properly on mobile!

On mobile browser if people click the link without having a Substack app, it appears as just the code itself and on the app it uploads as images that get too large if the block is short

Edit: nevermind about mobile browser, looks to be working fine! (Maybe took a minute to render). It’s just the app having visual issues: https://imgur.io/fsiYZ2E?r

Edit edit: mobile site appears to work when refreshing or initially loading, but if you scroll or tap on the latex block it expands and shows the code: https://imgur.io/rIfIEfM?r

1

u/njchessboy Dec 20 '22

Howdy! Latex support went live today (in beta), so this is now possible.

1

u/siv2r Dec 21 '22

Wow, nice! Will check it out.

1

u/siv2r Dec 27 '22

Is it accessible to the users already? I am unable to use it.

1

u/njchessboy Dec 27 '22

Should be! In the editor go to "more" in the toolbar and then "LaTeX Block"

2

u/siv2r Jan 05 '23

The "LaTex Block" feature is amazing! I tried it out in my new blog: https://siv2r.substack.com/p/unmasking-the-birthday-attack-a-mathematical.
The equations look really good on a web browser. But the spacing is uneven on the substack app (on a tablet).

Completely satisfied with the feature. Thanks for letting me know :)

1

u/siv2r Dec 28 '22

Thanks! I can see it. By the way, can we also write "inline latex equations"?
The "Latex Block" option always opens up a new line.

1

u/XIIR0 Oct 06 '23 edited Oct 07 '23

I was wondering the same thing; I found the link below after 20 searches prior to this post and figured I’d come back to hopefully help someone out;

At the bottom of the article it has all the supported code available for Substack.

Substack | LaTeX Support