How do I configure mathjax for iPython notebooks?

Question

I'm trying to find a way for mathjax to not use STIX fonts for math in my iPython notebook. Instead, I'd much rather have it use the 'TeX' fonts. According to the documentation for Mathjax I should use:

MathJax.Hub.Config({
  "HTML-CSS": {
    preferredFont: "TeX"
  }
});

That being said, I'm not sure where to put this. I've already tried putting this chunk of code into my custom.js file pertaining to my own ipython profile, but it doesn't work. Ideally, I'd like to make ipython profile specific adjustments for mathjax.

Answer 1

I recently had the exact problem. I really don't like the default STIX-Web font to render equation. After experimenting for a little while, I found a way to change the MathJax font in Jupyter Notebook. My Jupyter Notebook version is 4.3.1 and it is shipped with Anaconda. I assume the solutions for other versions should be similar.

I tried to edit custom.js both in /notebook/static/custom/custom.js and ~/.jupyter/custom/custom.js. Doesn't work. I also tried to edit mathjaxutils.js. It does nothing. Finaly I saw this post https://github.com/jupyter/help/issues/109. I realize Jupyter uses main.min.js to read MathJax configuration. So here is the solutions:

• Download MathJax(https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax) from Github.
• Unzip the MathJax file and go into the folder
  • copy jax/output/HTML-CSS/fonts/TeX into directoy ../notebook/static/components/MathJax/jax/output/HTML-CSS/fonts/
  • copy fonts/HTML-CSS/TeX into ../notebook/static/components/MathJax/fonts/HTML-CSS/

• open ../notebook/static/notebook/js/main.min.js, search for availableFonts. It should be around line 14894. Change it to

  ...
  availableFonts: ["STIX-Web","TeX"],
  imageFont: null;
  preferredFont: "TeX",
  webFont: "TeX"
  ...
  

• Refresh the notebook.