Awesome LaTeX 
This is a curated list of awesome stuff for the (La)TeX typesetting
system.
Contents
Learning LaTeX
Guides how to learn LaTeX
Distributions
- MacTeX - Most common LaTeX
distribution for macOS, basically TeXLive with some Mac-specific tools
added.
- TeX Live - Most common
LaTeX distribution for Unix-like operating systems, including GNU/Linux.
Also works on Windows.
- MikTeX - Most common LaTeX
distribution for Windows, but also available for Mac, Linux or as Docker
image.
Docker Images
When one aims for a ready-to-run LaTeX environment without
installing, Docker images might be the choice.
Engines
- pdfTeX - TeX
compiler that produces PDF files immediately instead of DVI files
(nowadays, this is the standard compiler for many users).
- XeTeX - TeX compiler that
provides better unicode and font support than TeX/pdfTeX (i.e. you can
use the fonts of your operating system instead of only TeX fonts).
- LuaTeX - (La)TeX compiler that
supports Lua code for scripting and has improved unicode and font
support than standard TeX/pdfTeX.
- tectonic
- Modern, self contained (La)TeX compiler powered by XeTeX and TeXLive.
- Auto-LaTeX
Equations with Google Docs - Render high-quality math equations
directly in Google Docs.
- MathJaX - JavaScript engine to
render mathematical formulas on the web. The outcome looks really slick.
- mimeTeX - mimeTeX is a
rather old tool to render LaTeX formulas to PNG figures for your web
site, without actually needing a LaTeX installation on your server.
- mathTeX - mathTeX is the
successor of mimeTeX: it produces nicer-looking images but it requires
LaTeX to be installed on your server.
- KaTeX - KaTeX is a math
rendering library made by Khan Academy focusing on fast load times. All
output is processed as plain HTML instead of fixed images.
- Franklin.jl - Static site
generator with KaTeX support, code evaluation, LaTeX-like commands and
optional pre-rendering, in Julia.
- xhub - Browser
extension that lets you use LaTeX in GitHub pages.
Editors
Because editing LaTeX code with notepad is not awesome. There are
many editors out there, below are the most awesome editors. A complete
list of LaTeX editors is collected at tex.stackexchange.com as big list of LaTeX
Editors/IDEs.
LaTeX-focused
Some of the most awesome editor for LaTeX do just that: edit
LaTeX.
- Kile - Great LaTeX editor
originally from the Linux/KDE community. It runs fine on Windows and
macOS as well.
- TeXMaker - Pretty
good alternative to Kile.
- TeXStudio - Cross-platform
LaTeX editor that stems from TeXMaker.
- WinEdt - The LaTeX editor many
people swear by. Only for .
- TeXnicCenter - Quite old
but free and decent editor for LaTeX.
- LyX - Cross-platform WYSIWYM
editor that uses LaTeX behind the scenes to render documents.
- TeXShop -
No-nonsense editor for LaTeX documents which is included in MacTeX.
- TeXWorks - No-nonsense
editor for LaTeX code, modeled after TeXShop, but this one is
cross-platform.
- BakomaTex - Commercial
LaTeX editor that allows to edit your document both using its source
code and WYSIWYG.
- Texpad - Commercial LaTeX
editor for macOS and iOS, with excellent features (document overview,
synchronised PDF display, autocompletion, sync across devices, etc.)
that never get in the way of writing.
General purpose text editors
These editors are no one-trick ponies: sure, they edit LaTeX, but
they can do a lot more!
- Atom
- LaTeXTools - Atom
port of the Sublime Text package of the same name.
- Sublime Text
- Emacs
- AucTeX - Emacs
plugin for LaTeX that also shows a preview of equations and figures.
- RefTeX -
Emacs plugin for LaTeX that adds support for labels, references, and
citations.
- Vim
- Vim-LaTeX
- LaTeX
Live Preview - Instantly previews your LaTeX document.
- vimtex - Modern vim
plugin for editing LaTeX files. Has a variety of features including live
preview and forward search.
- IntelliJ
- VS Code
Online editors
Online editors that allow you to edit documents collaboratively.
- List
of popular online LaTeX editors - Community-maintained list of
popular online LaTeX editor including equation editors.
- Authorea - Online editor with
built-in git support and bibliography tools.
- ShareLaTeX - Has pretty
great LaTeX documentation and simple version control.
- Overleaf - Online editor,
also with a WYSIWYM editor and git support.
- WebLaTeX -
Web-based vscode with Git Integration + Copilot + Grammar & Spell
Checker + Live Collaboration Support based on GitHub Codespace and Dev
container.
- Papeeria - Online editor with
built-in git support.
- JaxEdit - Online
LaTeX editor with Live Preview and nice presentation mode.
- JabRef - Very powerful
cross-platform (Java) bibtex editor.
- Papis - Extremely
customizable, powerful and simple cross-platform (Python) library
manager. It has a very complete Command-Line-Interface, several GUIs and
scripting capability.
- Bibdesk - Great
bibliography editor for .
- Zotero - Reference manager for
your browser that also exports to bibtex and integrates with many LaTeX
editors.
- Mendeley - Both an app and
cloud client to manage your references and PDFs. Can sync out to a
bibtex file for your LaTeX workflow.
- betterbib -
Command-line utility for improving your BibTeX files. Fetches
information from online sources.
Compiling LaTeX documents can be tedious, build tools help you to
manage the compilation process.
- Arara (GitHub repo) - Simple
tool that allows you to specify which tools to call inside your document
and it can be extended quite easily.
- latexmk - Build tool
that is the commonly used by many LaTeX editors (LaTeXing, TeXShop,
etc.) to build your LaTeX files.
GitHub Actions
- CaTeX -
Concatenates LaTeX documents with attention for properly merging the
preamble.
- Pandoc - This program converts
almost any document format (LaTeX, DOC, markdown, etc.) to almost any
other format. A great tool to aid workflows where multiple formats are
used.
- ChkTeX - Linter / code
checker for LaTeX documents.
- blacktex -
Command-line tool that replaces commonly occurring LaTeX anti-patterns
and cleans up your files.
- TeXtidote -
A cross-platform (Java) spelling, grammar and style checker for LaTeX
documents.
- Codecogs Eqn Editor -
Online LaTeX equation editor that allows you to produce figures
containing an equation.
- EqualX - Graphical
LaTeX formula editor.
- KLaTeXFormula -
Cross-platform alternative for LaTeXit.
- Laeqed - Crossplatform
LaTeX formula to PNG convertor.
- LaTeXEqEdit -
LaTeX formula editor for Windows.
- LaTeXiT - LaTeXit
is an equation editor that makes it easy to drag-and-drop rendered
equations (as PDF, PNG, etc.) into your non-LaTeX documents on the Mac.
- pix2tex -
LaTeX OCR
- TikzEdt (also: GitHub repo) - WYSIWYG
and text-based editor for TikZ pictures.
- TikZ-Editor -
Live-previewing editor for TikZ figures.
- IPE - Drawing tool that
integrates well with LaTeX commands and documents.
- GeoGebra - Cross-platform
geometry tool with output to TikZ.
- Dia - Cross-platform
diagramming tool that can export to PSTricks and MetaPost code.
- TikZiT - GUI tool for
creating graphs and string diagrams using PGF/TikZ.
- LaTeXDraw -
Vector-based drawing tool having LaTeX as first-class citizen.
Packages
- CTAN - The Comprehensive TeX
Archive Network is the place to look for useful packages and
documentation.
References
Tables
- Excel2LaTeX -
Excel (2010 and older) macros to produce LaTeX
tabular
code.
- csv2latex
- Converts CSV files from your favorite programs to LaTeX
tabulars.
- Tables Generator -
This website provides a graphical interface to input your table and
produces properly-formatted code for LaTeX, Markdown, HTML, etc.
- pgfplotstable
- This package displays numerical tables rounded to desired precision in
various display formats. It can even read CSV files to include directly
in your LaTeX document.
Graphics
PSTricks
PSTricks is a great library to draw figures for inclusion in
PostScript/DVI files.
TikZ
TikZ is an awesome package with many plugins that allow you to create
figures from within your LaTeX documents. Typically, it is easier to get
to work with pdflatex than PSTricks is.
- TeXample - Blog about LaTeX,
with a big collection of TikZ figures.
- LaTeX
en SI - Useful website with some custom packages to draw special
plots (Bode, Nyquist, electrical schematics, block schematics, etc.)
using TikZ. Note that everything is in French.
- pgfplots - Truly
awesome plotting library on top of and in the style of TikZ/pgf. This
library can load in CSV data files, perform some calculations and create
beautiful plots.
- A very
minimal introduction to TikZ (PDF) - Short introductory document to
the world of TikZ, written by Jacques Crémer.
- PetarV-/TikZ -
Collection of publication-ready PGF/TikZ figures by Petar
Veličković.
- matlab2tikz
- Convert your MATLAB plots to PGFPlots/TikZ.
- tikzplotlib -
Convert your matplotlib plots to PGFPlots/TikZ.
- TikZBlog - Step-by-Step
Tutorials about How to Draw Illustrations in LaTeX.
Source Code
- minted - The minted
package uses pygments to generate
the listings. In this way, LaTeX is able to format more than 300
programming and markup languages and other text formats.
Typography
- microtype - This
package improves the appearance of your documents by enabling margin
kerning and font expansion.
Presentations, Slides
- nics - An opinionated
alternative to Beamer, that we created with the hopes to make common
tasks very easy and beautifully rendered by default. Has awesome
documentation and a detailed cheatsheet to help you getting
started.
Templates
Symbols
Resources
Showcases
Tutorials
Books
Blogs
- TeXblog - Blog about LaTeX and
everything related.
- texblog.org - Blog on LaTeX and
related topics (tutorials, packages, code snippets, etc.).
- TeX Talk - Blog for the TeX Stack
Exchange site with news and interviews.
- TeX Hour - A weekly video
meeting
If you want to contribute, please do read our CONTRIBUTING guidelines.
Legend
The icons indicating Mac, Linux and Windows compatibility show when a
program is only available for those platforms. So absence of
those icons means that the software is fully cross-platform.
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