scanny
feature request: maths formula or Latex support
Writing maths is needed very frequently in scientific background. Powerpoint has built-in formula support, is it possible to have access to that?
At the moment, when I want some formula, I'll generate a picture and add_picture
r = requests.get( 'http://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\dpi{900} %s' % formula )
tmpfname = r"H:\tmpplots\pptx_formula.png"
f = open( tmpfname, 'wb' )
f.write( r.content )
f.close()
This is OK for occasional displayed maths, but for frequent use of Greeks, sub/super-scripts etc, I have to manually edit the file afterwards.
Two questions - of which one is where I'm repeating myself:
-
Can someone post a fragment of XML that shows what a simple formula would look like? Euler's Equation has some complexity.
-
Any thoughts on what could parse a formula in eg Latex syntax into a tree - to be converted to XML like that in Q1? This would have to be in python - unless something could be called externally that emitted eg JSON.
(On the second point - my md2pptx can call CairoSVG to do conversion.)
Note: I'm not advocating an external tool creating a bitmap; pptx format is better all round.
Being able to request something like mathjax would be the dream but html is not possible in pptx iirc so I think there's two straightforward approaches:
- Use latex to unicode converters to have a semblance of math capabilities (this can likely be done on the user side though so may not be ideal for additional implementation)
- As you suggest parse latex or some python structure into a powerpoint math output
For point 1, see https://pypi.org/project/pylatexenc/
For point 2, these may be of interest:
- Direct Conversion: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/25223/embed-latex-math-equations-into-microsoft-word
- https://github.com/cyrildtm/latex2word/blob/master/latex2word.html - This is interesting as it suggests MathJax can do direct to MathML (I believe what microsoft math uses) which means users wouldn't necessarily need a LaTeX install
- https://github.com/roniemartinez/latex2mathml - This is a pure python solution apparently which would be ideal - not sure what prereqs it has
- Example application: https://github.com/maxwang967/Latex2WordFullConverter/blob/main/eq_converter_v1.py
- Alternative approach: https://github.com/yeewantung/tex_math_to_word/blob/main/latex_to_word.py
- LaTeX AST Tree: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@andstor/latex-math-parser
This is showing $e^{i\theta}=\cos{\theta}+i\sin{\theta}$ using the standard powerpoint maths tools:
<m:oMathPara xmlns:m="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/math">
<m:oMathParaPr>
<m:jc m:val="centerGroup" />
</m:oMathParaPr>
<m:oMath>
<m:sSup>
<m:sSupPr>
<m:ctrlPr>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
</m:ctrlPr>
</m:sSupPr>
<m:e>
<m:r>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>𝑒</m:t>
</m:r>
</m:e>
<m:sup>
<m:r>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>𝑖</m:t>
</m:r>
<m:r>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
<a:ea typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>𝜃</m:t>
</m:r>
</m:sup>
</m:sSup>
<m:r>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>=</m:t>
</m:r>
<m:func>
<m:funcPr>
<m:ctrlPr>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
</m:ctrlPr>
</m:funcPr>
<m:fName>
<m:r>
<m:rPr>
<m:sty m:val="p" />
</m:rPr>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="0" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>cos</m:t>
</m:r>
</m:fName>
<m:e>
<m:r>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
<a:ea typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>𝜃</m:t>
</m:r>
</m:e>
</m:func>
<m:r>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>+</m:t>
</m:r>
<m:r>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>𝑖</m:t>
</m:r>
<m:func>
<m:funcPr>
<m:ctrlPr>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
</m:ctrlPr>
</m:funcPr>
<m:fName>
<m:r>
<m:rPr>
<m:sty m:val="p" />
</m:rPr>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="0" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>sin</m:t>
</m:r>
</m:fName>
<m:e>
<m:r>
<a:rPr lang="en-GB" sz="3600" b="0" i="1" smtClean="0">
<a:latin typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
<a:ea typeface="Cambria Math" panose="02040503050406030204" pitchFamily="18" charset="0" />
</a:rPr>
<m:t>𝜃</m:t>
</m:r>
</m:e>
</m:func>
</m:oMath>
</m:oMathPara>
As an aside, if this is harder than I believe, then even an easier way to embed images of latex would be amazing!
I will say, that https://github.com/roniemartinez/latex2mathml seems the obvious route imo but the above xml also seems pretty straightforward to parse