Markdown Math Preview

Write Markdown with LaTeX math ($inline$ and $$block$$ syntax) and see it rendered live in your browser using KaTeX. Free, no signup, nothing uploaded.

Markdown Math Preview

Standard Markdown has no built-in support for mathematical notation. The common convention — supported natively by GitHub, GitLab, and several other platforms — is to write formulas in LaTeX syntax wrapped in dollar signs, then have a rendering engine turn that into typeset math. This tool renders that math live in your browser as you type, using the open-source KaTeX engine, so you can check your formulas actually look right before pasting them into a README, wiki, or note-taking app.

Syntax

Inline math uses single dollar signs, with no space right after the opening $ or right before the closing $: 

The formula $E = mc^2$ represents mass-energy equivalence.

Block (display) math uses double dollar signs, usually on their own lines: 

$$
\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}
$$

This tool follows the same "no adjacent whitespace" rule GitHub uses for inline math, so prices like $5, $10 are correctly left alone and not mistaken for a math expression — a real gotcha with naive dollar-sign detection.

What renders well

KaTeX covers the large majority of everyday LaTeX math: fractions (\frac), exponents and subscripts (x^2, H_2O), roots (\sqrt), Greek letters (\alpha, \beta), sums and integrals (\sum, \int), matrices, and most standard operators and symbols. Formulas that fail to parse show a red inline error instead of silently breaking your whole document, and the specific error is listed below the preview so you can see exactly what to fix.

Known limitations — read before relying on this for another platform

LimitationDetail
Rendering engine differences This preview uses KaTeX. GitHub's own math rendering and MathJax (used by many Jekyll/Hugo setups) can differ slightly in spacing, glyph shapes, and support for a handful of obscure LaTeX commands — this preview is a very close approximation, not a pixel-perfect guarantee of how GitHub or MathJax will render the same source.
Not every platform supports math at all GitHub, GitLab, and Obsidian render $...$/$$...$$ math natively. Plain CommonMark, most static-site generators (Jekyll/kramdown, Hugo, Docusaurus), and Confluence/Notion/Slack do not render math out of the box — they need an explicit MathJax or KaTeX plugin/script added to the page, or they'll show the literal dollar-sign text. Always confirm math support on your specific target platform before relying on it.
Advanced LaTeX packages Some LaTeX packages and commands used in academic papers (custom macros, certain chemistry or physics packages beyond the basics) aren't part of KaTeX's supported command set and will show as a red parse error here even if a full LaTeX/MathJax installation would render them.
Copied HTML needs KaTeX's CSS The "Copy HTML" button copies the rendered markup, but that markup relies on KaTeX's own stylesheet and font files to display correctly. Pasting it into a page that doesn't already load KaTeX's CSS will show unstyled, misaligned math — this is meant for platforms that already have KaTeX available, not as a fully self-contained snippet.

Common use cases

  • Technical documentation — check a formula renders correctly before committing it to a README
  • Academic notes — draft equations for a paper or thesis written in Markdown
  • Data science READMEs — document model formulas, loss functions, and statistics
  • Wiki and note-taking apps — verify math syntax before pasting into Obsidian, GitHub wikis, or GitLab

For platform-by-platform setup details (including how to enable MathJax on Jekyll and Hugo), see our companion guide: Math Expressions in Markdown: Complete LaTeX and MathJax Guide.

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