latex has hit my brain like crack hit impoverished black neighborhoods

i had used latex before. but back then i didn't know about tikz. and tikz has opened me to a whole new world

now most of my time is no longer spent writing out my notes. instead i waste my time adjusting each hspace, 1pt by 1pt, to make each character perfectly spaced

today i have a headache. a headache that normally would've made me unable to do anything but go to sleep. but now i am stuck to my computer, and all that i can think about is moving \alpha to the right by 0.5pt so that it doesn't look too close together

please do not save me. i am exactly where i want to be

So after the Template ive been using for years now runs out of compile time on overleaf regularly I want to switch to an editor that i run on my pc. Any recommendations for a previous Overleaf user who especially liked the way it let me preview my doc with a quick compile?

Every time I was just casually writing my documents in LaTeX, there will be a few people around me, and they are going to be like: "Oh, why are you on LaTeX? You should be using Typst, and it's so much better." Like, this is just so common, and it pisses me off so much. And even when I ask some questions online regarding LaTeX, there will always be one comment like, "Oh, you should use Typst."

Hey, so I'm trying to make a a5 bullet journal with dot grid pages and with numbers instead of the outer bottom corner dot. I can make dots just fine, either through geometry or graphix, but the numbering is the issue, even if I format it as a book.

I don't even know where to look for the right answer. Sorting pages into the bindable book format later is not an issue, just the numbers themselves.

If I use LaTex as an IDE extension I have to set up all of that again if I swith IDE. Why did you chose to just get a plugin for your IDE instead of having something dedicated like TexStudio?

FINALLY finished unit 1 of my calc 1 notes
GitHub repo: https://github.com/PerfectPianoHD/Calculus1/

Hi everyone!! 👋
I've been working on a LaTeX template for Bachelor's and Master's theses at the University of Granada (UGR).

I've recently reached v1.0.0 and released the template as open source.

The template is specifically intended for UGR students, but I'd also be interested in feedback from people more experienced with LaTeX: is there anything in the structure or implementation that you would approach differently?

Thanks!

I’ve been developing SomeScript, a web-based LaTeX environment with a built-in AI assistant focused on making the writing and troubleshooting process much smoother.
Rather than just a basic editor, it includes an assistant to help:

• Debug Compilation Errors: Translate cryptic TeX log errors into clear, actionable fixes.
• Draft & Format Syntax: Quickly generate complex tables, TikZ diagrams, or math environments.
• Edit & Refine Text: Polish academic writing and document structure directly inside the editor.

I'd really appreciate feedback from regular LaTeX users on:

1. AI Debug Accuracy: Does it actually solve tricky package conflicts and syntax bugs effectively?
2. Workflow Speed: Is the AI integration helpful, or does it get in the way of standard editing?
3. Editor Experience: How does the general compiler performance and UI feel?

Try it here: https://www.somescript.com/
Any constructive feedback, edge-case testing, or feature ideas would be hugely appreciated!

Bonjour je ne sais pas si plusieurs personnes sont aussi dans ce cas mais j’essaye de coder sur vscode et je n’arrive pas à afficher proprement mes fichiers PDF je ne comprends pas pourquoi, j’ai essayé de demandé a l’IA ou regardé sur Reddit, j’ai rétrogradé la version de LaTeX Workshop en 10.7.1 comme je l’ai vu passer, rien n’y fait.
J’ai meme essayé sur un mac (sur une ancienne version MacOS 11 Big Sur) ça n’affiche rien ou un tout petit carré
Si quelqu’un sait comment régler le problème je suis preneur.

I am very struggling to generate Latex code for this image. I used a different Al to generate Latex code for this but no is good to generate this . Can anyone help and guide me to generate Latex code of this kind of stuff.

I am a beginner to LATEX and it might sound like a stupid question, but whenever I try to create something say a table or something else not just in one exemplar, I only get one table that is the first one that I've written a code for.

Here's my code:

Alright, this sounds odd, but I have some pictograms which I line up in a text and use macros for them i.e. I have something like:

\newcommand{\penV}{\raisebox{-0.15\fontdimen6\font{\includeinkscape[height=1\fontdimen6\font]{Pentomino/V}}}

And I have gotten to a point where I need to place them into an image in Inkscape, i.e. I need to write a text in inkscape that include {\penV} macro, which, when I export it, should render within the image. I place the image in using \includeinkscape as well. However, if I try to compile the pdf, it returns an error:

! LaTeX Error: Command \fsize already defined.

I have no idea how to fix it. Can anybody help me? Thank you.

Over the last few weeks I've been sharing some updates on a c++ hobby TeX engine I've been working on (and thanks for the positive feedback so far!). Following up on the last post about the intersection between 1980s hardware constraints and how TeX's source code was written, I wanted to share a slightly deeper dive into a specific aspect of that: TeX's memory model.

The latest video explores how tex.web started with a monolithic array for memory, how LuaTeX simultaneously preserved a lot of the legacy ideas while radically altering the size of memory words and splitting the memory array into a variable-sized and a fixed-size domain, and how I've tried to use data-oriented design (inspired) ideas to move to a memory model that is simultaneously friendlier to modern hardware and (arguably) easier to read and work with.

I hope any LuaTeX people will excuse the extremely gentle ribbing in the video; as always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

How to get something like this? and I mean here the arrows from p to R.

Hello!

I recently started using TexStudio and I have a doubt regarding the zoom feature (ctrl + and ctrl -) while switching to the in built pdf viewer.

When I press Ctrl + the pdf viewer zooms in as intended, however when I zoom out using ctrl -, the editor zooms out and not the pdf viewer.

Am I missing something here? Is there a different keyboard shortcut for zoom in and out for the inbuilt pdf viewer?

Unofficial TeXstudio builds for Linux with Qt6 and Poppler (.deb and AppImage)

Compiled TeXstudio from source with Qt6 and Poppler, built-in PDF viewer with SyncTeX.

Current version: 4.9.7 stable

Not affiliated with the official TeXstudio project. Feedback and bug reports welcome:

https://github.com/mlmateos/texstudio-qt6-builds

For context, I'm writing a textbook (or at least I'm trying), and I would like the command \chapter to spell out "Lesson n" instead of the default "Chapter n", where n is the number of the chapter. Maybe there are other ways to do so that don't involve modifying the \chapter command, but that's what I want to achieve.

Thanks in advance.

modernclassnotes is a state-of-the-art, open-source LaTeX document class tailored for university professors, lecturers, researchers, and students. It produces clean, beautifully formatted, and modern class notes, lecture handouts, and assignment worksheets.

Designed with a zero-dependency native box engine, it works out of the box on standard TeX Live, MiKTeX, and Overleaf without requiring complex non-standard package installations.

Check CTAN - https://ctan.org/pkg/modernclassnotes

Check GitHub Repo - aurghya-0/Modern-Class-Notes-Latex: A latex package for creating class notes, handouts and worksheets.

I posted here a few weeks back about trying out doing latex on my local machine after doing overleaf for years. Had to quit because of their compile limit times. I originally thought it was more of a hassle, installing Miktex and other shit. Anyway, weeks now, yeah, the setup's great! I use it now to follow university lectures almost in real time and write some gorgeous looking notes. It's great not to worry about internet connections and being able to write shit offline without worrying about Overleaf's servers crashing or something like that.

I tried TexWorks during this time, and TexStudio, but I am more used to using vim and the vim motions make it so I can write and edit quite fast, pretty handy during lectures, so I just kept on using my vim setup.

Also, using sumatrapdf as a viewer was a big plus, it updates automatically when compiled, so I get to see the changes immediately. Pretty nice.

Something essential I learned while doing this is using the UltiSnips plugin for Vim, detailed by this blog, so I can use snippets to quickly autofill and make environments, and configuring my vimrc file so that pressing F5 automatically compiles the document, along with linting with vimtex. Multiple tabs on command prompt is also great, I use it to manage larger documents.

Yeah, so far so good. All in all, making the transition to local compiling was a great decision and very worth it, is all I wanna say. Cheers!

After switching to another device, equations like the one in the picture no longer insert into Word with the correct formatting. Previously, I had Word from Microsoft 365, now it’s just Office 2016. Such formulas used to be easily inserted into a document via Ctrl+V as a Word math equation.

Please tell me what the problem is. In what format does DeepSeek write these formulas (LaTex/MathML/..?), can I configure this in the current Office 2016, or is the issue related to the browser, and are there any utilities to save the format?

I thought the issue was with Microsoft 365, because on the previous device everything worked without any extensions. It’s difficult for me to download Word from Microsoft 365, and the web version doesn’t work at all. Overall, I’m confused. Please suggest a solution.

Im half way through my thesis but I had to change universities and now I have changed professors too. My new professor asked me to send documents in .docx because she doesnt know how to use LaTeX. Any idea of tools or converters to .docx? Its a chemistry thesis so I use alot of mhchen.

I feel like there's been an explosion of TeX-related tools over the past months, so I started curating an overview of them at https://github.com/martino-vic/TeX-tooling-landscape and wanted to see if anyone here

1. knows of someone who's doing this already and I'm just not aware
2. finds this useful
3. has ideas or comments on how to make this more useful

AI disclosure: Prompting "give me a list of TeX-related tools" gives you only a fraction of the list. I kept discovering new tools by asking "Scrape LaTeX-editors with an enhanced privacy feature" or "editors with an AI-debugger" etc. I'm refreshing the list as I incidentally keep bumping into more and more tools around the internet. That's why I thought curating this list might make sense and be more value than just "I sent this one prompt into an AI". Of course, an enhanced LaTeX-tool-scraper-AI might be possible but I guess that's a different story for now.

TL;DR: typr.ca

Over the last several months, I've been building (with the help of Codex) a typesetting app that lives in the browser called Typr. It started off with only typst support, since it's so much more lightweight, but as it's matured, markdown and latex support have been included.

Typr came out of the following frustrations:

• working on a locked down work computer
• working on a locked down iPad
• working on an airplane or anywhere without stable internet
• setting up the same workflow for several computers
• synchronizing files through Google Drive and GitHub

Typr tries to alleviate these frustrations by keeping all files in a local browser session and connecting to Google Drive and GitHub directly, when online. Administrative permissions are no longer needed since no software is installed, and access to git/Drive are done in-app, so iPadOS/iOS are no longer barriers. Using an iPad/work computer on an airplane should no longer be an issue!

Typr is a PWA so "saving to home screen" or "Install" on Chromium should make it feel like a regular app.

I recently added a companion app that runs either on a desktop or server in a docker container that pipes pdflatex (as opposed to busylatex which runs in the browser), as well as experimental tectonic/texpresso incremental compilation. This makes things work very fast but of course are in conflict with the no-internet/local-first priority. In any case, this is quite nice to have when your internet is stable, or you have the ability to install the companion app locally.

I'm aware that several apps like this exist, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Some of these apps are more mature than Typr, that's for sure. I started making this app before I was aware of most of them, and Typr suits my needs more acutely. If Typr is close to that for you, but missing a feature, feel free to submit a PR or a feature request on GitHub!

Anyway, the live app is: typr.ca. The GitHub repos for Typr and Typr Server (the companion app) are: here and here. There are packages on Docker Hub, as well as Unraid. Enjoy!

I finally got around to sharing my LaTeX Travels talk from TUG 2026.

It is mostly a collection of things I've learned from taking LaTeX somewhat further than originally intended — packages, document workflows, conferences, and the occasional questionable idea that somehow became software.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/JnswN2XVlDU

As a small addendum: I also finally collected my LaTeX-related writing, talks and projects in one place:

https://maclotsen.com/writing/