Michael Adams (mdawaffe)

Is this still a problem in WordPress 4.6? I tested recently on my site, and it’s working as expected.

You can add an s parameter to the shortcode to make the size larger:

[latex s=3]\frac { 7 }{ \frac { 3 }{ 4 } } [/latex]

(The default value for s is 0 and it goes up to 4.)

You can also try using \displaystyle to make some complicated expressions more clear.

[latex]\displaystyle \frac { 7 }{ \frac { 3 }{ 4 } } [/latex]

Both work for me. For the second one, the resulting image I get is:

https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=%5Cfrac+%7B+1+%7D%7B+1%2B%5Cfrac+%7B+1+%7D%7B+4+%7D++%7D+-%5Cfrac+%7B+1+%7D%7B+1%2B%5Cfrac+%7B+2+%7D%7B+3+%7D++%7D+%3D&bg=ffffff&fg=333333&s=0&zoom=2

What do you see?

What site are you trying to add LaTeX to?

LaTeX requires a valid delimiter for both \left and \right. If you want an empty \left, you’ll need to use a .:

[latex]\left . A \right\}[/latex]

[latex]\left . \begin{matrix} A \\ B \\ C \end{matrix} \right\} [/latex]

See, for example, https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/latex/ltx-403.html

I recommend installing the Jetpack plugin and using its Beautiful Math feature instead of this plugin.

https://jetpack.me/support/beautiful-math-with-latex/

That said, no software is required to use WP LaTeX by default, since it uses WordPress.com’s LaTeX server to create the LaTeX Images.

You can host your own server instead, but that will require installing various programs on your host:

• LaTeX, and
• either:

• dvipng or
• dvips and ImageMagick

Could you please try version 1.9.3-beta (currently available at https://downloads.www.ads-software.com/plugin/wp-latex.zip)?

I believe it fixes the encoding issues as well as some image alignment issues.

Image alignment with this plugin is pretty annoying. There’s no great way of fixing the problem.

You can tweak your site’s LaTeX CSS to adjust the vertical positioning, but it’s not a perfect solution. To do that, go to your WordPress’ Admin -> Settings -> WP LaTeX and find the “Custom CSS” section.

I suggest also checking out the MathJax plugins instead of this plugin. Either https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/mathjax-latex/ or https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/simple-mathjax/ might work. MathJax is smarter in how it lays out the math output.

I recommend installing Jetpack and using its Beautiful Math feature instead of this plugin: https://jetpack.me/support/beautiful-math-with-latex/

That said, the HTTPS issue should be fixed as of WP LaTeX version 1.9.2 (just released – it should show up at https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/wp-latex/ and in your WordPress’ dashboard shortly).

Thanks for reporting the problem.

Cool. Thanks.

Developers can add the following line to the top of their wp-config.php file to put Jetpack into development mode. In dev mode, you don’t need to be connected to WordPress.com (you don’t need XML-RPC available), but not all features will work.

define( 'JETPACK_DEV_DEBUG', true );

See https://jetpack.me/2013/03/28/jetpack-dev-mode-release/ for more details.

Unfortunately, it appears that Beautiful Math is one of those features that won’t work in dev mode. I think that’s a bug. I’ll confer with the rest of the team and get it working in dev mode for the next release.

WP LaTeX, WordPress.com, and Jetpack all accept both LaTeX syntaxes in posts. That is, you should be able to use both[latex]...[/latex] and $latex ... $ everywhere. If you have a specific problem, please let me know and I’ll try to sort it out.

I agree that the LaTeX → PNG isn’t very flexible. Depending on your theme, it can look downright ugly. Also, the PNG images we generate don’t do a good job of vertically aligning with one another.

Thanks for the input on MathJax. I’m a big fan. I’d really love to see WordPress.com and Jetpack move to MathJax (probably falling back to PNG). We just haven’t had the time to make it happen.

I’ll read through your WP.com forums post and reply there too if there’s anything I can add.

docheri,

Hm… Same questions ?? Is the “Beautiful Math” feature activated?

Also – are you trying to add this LaTeX to a post or a comment?

$latex t = \sqrt{\frac{2d} {g}} \;\text{where}\; {g=9.81 \,\text{m/s}^2}$
$latex d = \frac{1} {2}gt^2,d \;\text{in meters}$

[latex]t = \sqrt{\frac{2d} {g}} \;\text{where}\; {g=9.81 \,\text{m/s}^2}[/latex]
[latex]d = \frac{1} {2}gt^2,d \;\text{in meters}[/latex]

All of the above works for me in a post. Oddly, the [latex][/latex] syntax does not work in comments for me, but the $latex$ syntax does.

Lastly, what syntactic differences do you see between WP LaTeX and Jetpack?

Xexyz,

When you go to your WordPress’ admin → Jetpack (/wp-admin/admin.php?page=jetpack), is the “Beautiful Math” feature activated? If you see a blue “Activate” button, click that button and try again.

Joe,

Without a URL, I can’t say for certain, but it’s probably because your server is sending only your certificate, not the intermediary ones between yours and the root of the certificate chain.

GoDaddy does not sign the certificates with their root certifcate; they sign them with an intermediate certificate which you must configure your webserver to send alongside your certificate.

Your site is accessible in your browser without SSL warnings because your browser has the GoDaddy intermediate certificate installed by default. Your site is not accessible by our Jetpack servers because OpenSSL (the SSL library we and many others use) does not include these sorts of intermediate certificates.

If you compare the certificate information you send to what we send on https://wordpress.com/, you can see we send the intermediate certificates as well (we are both using GoDaddy).

It’s not just a Jetpack problem. Not sending the intermediate certificates almost certainly breaks other things besides OpenSSL (older browsers, some mobile devices, etc.).

Assuming my guess about the problem is correct, if you configure your webserver to send the intermediate certificates as well, everything should start working.

If you’re using Apache as your webserver, here’s a FAQ about SSL verification and intermediate certificates: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/ssl/ssl_faq.html#gid

I can speak for Jetpack.

It was a design decision to not allow self-signed certificates. We have since reevaluated that decision. Now it’s a bug.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an ETA on when that bug will be fixed for Jetpack.

Ah, I thought they had not been flagged as spam; I misread what you meant about the Empty Spam button (you were quite clear :)).

Thanks for the feedback. We’ll look into it.

I’m glad you got everything sorted and sorry you had to.