Can I integrate MathJax into a Python program?

Question

This might be a silly question, but is it possible to merge MathJax into Python code? Many times I've wished the program output would look more neat, and honestly MathJax looks awesome.

I know MathJax runs on Javascript, yet I have not given up hope. If the answer is no, are there some simple modules to use instead?

For example, if:

1.234 / e^23 [and] (I^-)_(aq) +I _(2(s)) -> (I^-)_3(aq)

could be formatted as:

,

that would be ideal.

Answer 1

I can only presume that maybe you want to output something to the display for printing. Hence the common usage in Python is probably Matplotlib (albeit Gnuplot is a good alternative that is python compatible). If you create a blank plot using Matplotlib then you can input normal plain LaTeX maths instructions (near identical to MathJax):

A small example:

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('TkAgg')
import pylab
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import rc

plt.clf()
plt.rc('text', usetex=True)
plt.rcParams["figure.figsize"] = (8, 5)
plt.rc('font', **{'family':'serif', 'serif':['Computer Modern Roman'], 'size': 16})
plt.axis("off")
plt.text(0.5, 0.5, "Maths $e = mc^2$")

gives the following output

which can trivially be saved, as a .pdf, and then the apparent graininess of my screenshot is removed.