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 PNG is passed to floatpane/termimage which handles protocol selection and escape-sequence encoding.

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