Software hosting and version control platform GitHub now supports LaTeX formatted math within Markdown. For more information, see LaTeX/Mathematics in Wikibooks.

Support for displaying math expressions has been a highly requested feature. Now users can utilise the $ and $$ delimiters natively to insert math expressions in TeX and LaTeX style syntax.

GitHub’s math rendering capability uses MathJax; an open-source, JavaScript-based display engine. MathJax supports a wide range of LaTeX macros and several useful accessibility extensions.

To know more, see the MathJax documentation and the MathJax Accessibility Extensions Documentation.

How to add math expressions?

Users can add mathematical expressions in two ways:

1. Inline expressions 

This sentence uses `$` delimiters to show math inline

Math expression: 3x-1 + (1+x)²

Code:  $\sqrt{3x-1}+(1+x)^2$

2. Block expressions 

To add a math expression as a block, start a new line and delimit the expression with two dollar symbols $$.

Math expression:

Code:  $$\left( \sum_{k=1}^n a_k b_k \right)^2 \leq \left( \sum_{k=1}^n a_k^2 \right) \left( \sum_{k=1}^n b_k^2 \right)$$

GitHub’s move has sparked a flurry of comments on social media. 

But not all are impressed.  “I have seen this feature in gitlab since a very long time ago. It’s always good to see progress, but it seems that github is years behind gitlab,” said Jordi Garra Tico, a Senior security engineer at METACO.

Meanwhile, Emad Elsaid, a software engineer at Twitter, said:

“Why is the syntax $$ instead of regular code blocks like “`mathml for example? the chosen format extends markdown syntax with a special syntax that won’t render properly in other markdown editors.”