Choosing the Right Markdown Editor for Math

When using markdown for reproducible research , it is better to know how your writing will be rendered. That determines not only supported markdown syntax but also math typesetting.

Rendering Math

It depends on the output (pdf or html), the following engines (all open sources) can be used to render math.

• LaTeX: used by Pandoc to render pdf.

• MathJax: rendering math in html.

  • Easy to use.
  • Support a large variety of LaTeX commands, in particular, customized macro, such as \newcomannd.
  • Better to use MathJax 3, instead of MathJax 2.7.

• KaTeX: rendering math in html.

  • Faster than MathJax 3.
  • Implementation is harder than MathJax.
  • Support customized macros by customizing KaTeX settings.

Here is a webpage for a KaTeX and MathJax Comparison Demo.

Markdown Parsers

Markdown itself is just a lightweight markup language. To preview the files with styles, we need Markdown parsers. There are a lot of Markdown parsers. Here are a few widely used parsers.

• Pandoc: a universal document converter in Haskell.

• Goldmark: a Markdown parser and HTML renderer in Go used by Hugo.

• Markdown-it: a fast and easy to extend Markdown parser in Javascript.

• rmarkdown: a R package that helps create dynamic analysis documents.

One can also find an incomplete list of Markdown parsers in the post Choosing the Right Markdown Parser.

Implementations

There are specific designed editors and code editors with extensions to preview and/or convert Markdown files. For better math rendering, here are some Markdown implementations that I would like to recommend.

Code Editors with Extensions

• Rstudio + rmarkdown.

  • Markdown parser: Pandoc
  • Math renderer: MathJax

• Visual Studio Code + Extensions

  • Markdown Preview Enhanced (recommended)

    • Markdown Parser: Markdown-it (default) or Pandoc

    • Math Renderer: KaTeX (default) or MathJax

      Both KaTeX and MathJax are configurable by cmd-shift-p then choose Markdown Preview Enhanced: Open Mathjax config or Markdown Preview Enhanced: Open KaTeX config. LaTeX macros can be defined for KaTeX using this feature.

  • Markdown All in One

    • Markdown Parser: Markdown-it

    • Math Renderer: KaTeX

      KaTeX is configurable by in extension setting.

Note: VS Code can also be used as an alternative to Rstudio for R.

Markdown Editors

Many good markdown editors don’t support math well. If you don’t want to use VS Code, you may try Typora.

• Typora: a Markdown editors that render the Markdown directly in WYSIWYG fashion.

  • Markdown Parser: Pandoc
  • Math Renderer: MathJax

Online Markdown Editors

• StackEdit

  • Markdown Parser: Pandoc (most likely)
  • Math Renderer: KaTeX (starting from v5)

• Dillinger

  • Markdown Parser: Markdown-it
  • Math Renderer: KaTeX (likely)

Overall, my recommendation for Markdown implements is VS Code plus extensions using MathJax.