go-term-latex

go-term-latex renders LaTeX math equations directly in the terminal — no browser, no GUI, no intermediate files the caller has to manage.

termlatex.Display(os.Stdout, `\int_0^\infty e^{-x^2}\,dx = \frac{\sqrt{\pi}}{2}`, termlatex.Options{})

That one call compiles the equation, converts the result to a tight-cropped PNG, and sends it to the terminal using the best available protocol: Kitty graphics, Sixel, or Unicode half-block characters as a fallback.

How it works

1. The equation is wrapped in a minimal standalone LaTeX document (amsmath, amssymb, amsfonts included).
2. A TeX backend turns the document into a PDF or DVI: pdflatex, tectonic, or latex+dvipng — whichever is installed.
3. The raster stage converts to PNG: pdftoppm (from poppler) for PDF backends, dvipng for the DVI backend.
4. The black-on-white PNG is recolored to match the terminal theme — detected by querying the terminal (OSC 10 / OSC 11) — so glyphs adopt the foreground color and the background blends in. See Getting Started.
5. The PNG is scaled to fit the terminal and written directly as Kitty graphics, Sixel, or Unicode half-block — protocol detection and encoding are built in, with no external display dependency.

What this is not

• Not a full TeX runtime. This is a thin Go wrapper around TeX tools you provide. Go has no pure-Go LaTeX math renderer capable of production-quality output; shelling out is the right call for quality.
• Not safe for untrusted input. Even without -shell-escape, TeX documents can read local files. See Security.
• Not a streaming renderer. Each call opens a temp dir, compiles, converts, and cleans up. For a REPL or notebook-style interface, cache the PNG yourself and re-display rather than recompiling on every redraw.

Sister projects