LaTeX Input

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An LaTeX formula input panel for Obsidian — with a visual editor powered by MathLive and a quick-insert symbol palette. No default hotkeys — bind your own in Settings → Hotkeys to avoid conflicts with your existing setup.

A LaTeX formula input plugin for Obsidian. Click symbols from the palette to auto-generate source, preview live, and insert into the current note; also supports screen-selection OCR and clipboard-image OCR so you can type formulas faster.

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✨ Features

• 🎯 Click-to-insert symbols — 10 categories, ~250 symbols. Click to insert at the cursor.
• 👀 Live preview — WYSIWYG-style rendering as you type.
• ⌨️ Editable source — Tweak the raw LaTeX directly in the source box.
• 📸 Screenshot OCR — press the bound hotkey (or click the camera ribbon icon) to drag-select a region, auto-converted to LaTeX.
• 📋 Clipboard OCR — press the bound hotkey (or click the clipboard ribbon icon) to read the image currently in your clipboard.
• 🕘 History — Persisted automatically; reload any past formula to keep editing.
• 🌗 Dark-mode friendly — Follows your Obsidian theme automatically.
• 📦 Zero external dependencies — MathLive is bundled into main.js.

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🚀 Getting Started

Option 1: Install from the Community Plugin Store (recommended)

1. In Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins.
2. Make sure Community plugins are enabled (toggle on top of the page).
3. Click Browse and search for LaTeX Input.
4. Click Install, then go back to Installed plugins and enable LaTeX Input.

If the store search doesn't show it (region/cache issues), open the plugin page directly: https://obsidian.md/plugins?id=latex-input

Option 2: Download from Releases

1. Go to Releases and download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css.
2. In your vault, create the path: .obsidian/plugins/latex-input/
3. Drop the three files into that folder.
4. Settings → Community plugins → Installed plugins → enable LaTeX Input.

Option 3: Build from source

git clone <this-repo>
cd latex-input
npm install
npm run build

The build output main.js lives at the repo root. Deploy it together with manifest.json and styles.css to .obsidian/plugins/latex-input/.

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⌨️ Hotkeys

No default hotkeys — to avoid conflicts with your existing setup, you'll need to bind them yourself:

1. Settings → Hotkeys in Obsidian
2. Search for LaTeX Input
3. Bind any of the 6 commands:
   • Insert LaTeX formula (inline / display)
   • Screenshot OCR (inline / display)
   • Clipboard OCR (inline / display)
4. Optional in-panel hotkeys: Ctrl + Enter to insert, Esc to close.

The σ icon in the left ribbon always opens the panel — no hotkey required.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f74008e1-38ad-44da-a97d-2ad2be519e83

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📸 Screenshot OCR

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/da416d31-9908-4a8f-b58d-0f04f32faa7d

Press the bound hotkey for screenshot OCR (inline / display):

1. When screen capture is available — a full-screen overlay appears; drag to select the formula region; release to auto-OCR and insert.
2. When screen capture is unavailable — it falls back to clipboard polling with a small floating hint in the bottom-right; any screenshot you take is auto-detected, auto-OCR'd, and auto-inserted.

Press the bound hotkey for clipboard OCR to read the image currently in your clipboard.

First-time use requires configuring your OCR service in the plugin settings (API endpoint, key, model name).

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🧩 Panel Layout

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🛠 Customizing Symbols

Open symbols.ts and add entries in this format:

{ display: "∑", insert: "\\sum_{i=1}^{n} " }

• display — the text shown on the button
• insert — the LaTeX source inserted on click
• To place the caret at a specific position, use {cursor} inside insert

npm run build   # rebuild

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📁 Project Structure

latex-input/
├── manifest.json       # Obsidian plugin metadata
├── main.js             # Build output (loaded at runtime)
├── main.ts             # Entry source
├── symbols.ts          # Symbol library (10 categories, ~250 entries)
├── styles.css          # Styles
├── package.json        # npm config
├── esbuild.config.mjs  # Build script (esbuild + MathLive virtual module)
├── tsconfig.json       # TypeScript config
└── versions.json       # Obsidian version compatibility map

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📄 License

Copyright © 2026 Sun · Licensed under GPL-3.0