LaTEX

[tariq]

I realise not all users will find this useful, but many of us use Affinity - especially Designer - to create diagrams for scientific publications (books, papers, blogs, videos).

It would be amazing to have the ability to include LaTEX typeset formulae. The typesetting quality of decades old TeX is still far higher than anything Microsoft or Google can do today (and perhaps even Affinity Publisher, I haven't checked).

The capability doesn't have to be for laying out paragraphs and pages of text .. but just snippets of formulae and labels to be included in Diagrams or in existing body text. 

I understand the licensing of TeX and the standard typefaces (such as Computer Modern) are permissive and allow inclusion in proprietary products. A LaTEX backend can be quite huge, but very small versions exist designed to be used as embedded software. Notice that it has been possible for web pages to include LaTEX-liek typesetting using javascript libraries such as MathJAX .. so if a lightweight web page can do it .. surely a full-fat application like Affinity can do it.

Images attached show comparisons of typesetting mathematical formulae (Microsoft top left, Google Docs top right, LaTex bottom).

 

[John Rostron]

I used to be a TeX afficionado and could dash off formulae like those in an instant. However, in my retirement, those days are long gone. I can, however, see why it would be useful to include such formulae in Publisher documents (and presumably Designer). As I recall, the output from La(TeX), the dvi file, can be convreted to pdf (dvipdf). Could this not then be imported into an Affinity file?

Another solution would be for the Affinity apps to directly import a dvi file.

John

[fde101]

9 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

As I recall, the output from La(TeX), the dvi file, can be convreted to pdf

There are versions of LaTeX now that write PDFs out directly and bypass the DVI file completely.

 

Note that similar requests have been made before so this thread is largely a duplicate.