12.5.1 LaTeX fragments ¶

Org mode can contain LaTeX math fragments, and it supports ways to process these for several export backends. When exporting to LaTeX, the code is left as it is. When exporting to HTML, Org can use either MathJax (see Math formatting in HTML export) or transcode the math into images (see Previewing LaTeX fragments).

LaTeX fragments do not need any special marking at all. The following snippets are identified as LaTeX source code:

• Environments of any kind¹¹². The only requirement is that the ‘\begin’ statement appears on a new line, preceded by only whitespace.
• Text within the usual LaTeX math delimiters. Prefer ‘\(...\)’ for inline fragments. The ‘$...$’ alternative has some restrictions and may be a source of confusion. To avoid conflicts with currency specifications, single ‘$’ characters are only recognized as math delimiters if the enclosed text contains at most two line breaks, is directly attached to the ‘$’ characters with no whitespace in between, and if the closing ‘$’ is followed by whitespace or punctuation (but not a dash).

  Sometimes, it may necessary to have a literal dollar symbol even when it is recognized as LaTeX math delimiter. Org provides ‘\dollar’ and ‘\USD’ entities (see Special Symbols) that are rendered as ‘$’ for such scenarios. Also, see Escape Character.

For example:

\begin{equation}                        % arbitrary environments,
x=\sqrt{b}                              % even tables, figures, etc
\end{equation}

If $a^2=b$ and \( b=2 \), then the solution must be
either $$ a=+\sqrt{2} $$ or \[ a=-\sqrt{2} \].

LaTeX processing can be configured with the variable org-export-with-latex. The default setting is t which means MathJax for HTML, and no processing for ASCII and LaTeX backends. You can also set this variable on a per-file basis using one of these lines: