Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

A great idea would be that when you copy a math expression from the browser, it would put the LaTeX code in the copy-paste buffer:

  f(x) = \int_{-\infty}^\infty
    \hat f(\xi)\,e^{2 \pi i \xi x}
    \,d\xi
So then I could paste it in an email, in a text editor, in my own LaTeX document, etc.


I recently discovered this works in wikipedia,i.e. if copying the first rendered formula in a page[0] I get latex code.

Not sure if it's just the alt text.

[0] Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice and you get \forall X \left[ \emptyset \notin X \implies \exists f \colon X \rarr \bigcup X \quad \forall A \in X \, ( f(A) \in A ) \right] \,.


That's just the alt text.


I get “∀X[∅∉X⟹∃f:X→⋃X∀A∈X(f(A)∈A)]” – i.e. the Unicode representation (without having configured anything). I’d even argue that this is correct/desired in this particular case, although of course not all formulae can be correctly expressed in pure Unicode characters without formatting commands.


This is only the case when you copy the fallback image--these have alt text that give you the LaTeX representation. Wikipedia sometimes gives you equations in the browser (non-fallback) and then you get unicode text similar to what klmr experienced in the other comment.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: