Terminal LaTeX Hover

LaTeX printed in a terminal is hard to read. Hold Cmd (Ctrl on Windows and Linux), hover an equation, and you get Unicode.

$Holding Cmd and hovering the Navier-Stokes equations in the VS Code terminal$

LaTeX	Hover shows
`\alpha \leq \beta \Rightarrow \gamma \neq \delta`	α ≤ β ⇒ γ ≠ δ
`\int_0^\infty e^{-x^2} dx = \frac{\sqrt{\pi}}{2}`	∫₀^∞ e⁻ˣ² dx = √π/2
`\sum_{i=1}^{n} i = \frac{n(n+1)}{2}`	∑ᵢ₌₁ⁿ i = n(n+1)/2
`\begin{pmatrix} a & b \\ c & d \end{pmatrix}`	(a, b; c, d)
`\bar{x} + \hat{y} + \dot{z}`	x̅ + ŷ + ż
`\frac{\partial V}{\partial t} + \frac{1}{2}\sigma^2 S^2 \frac{\partial^2 V}{\partial S^2}`	∂V/∂t + ½σ² S² ∂²V/∂S²
`\mathbf{x}^\top \mathbf{A} \mathbf{x}`	𝐱ᵀ 𝐀𝐱
`f: \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{C}`	f: ℝ → ℂ
`\binom{n}{k}`	C(n, k)
`\frac{1}{2}`	½

Claude Code, Codex, and the other AI CLIs answer maths questions in LaTeX. So do SymPy, Julia, R, and a lot of solver output. This lets you read it without leaving the terminal.

Coverage

Greek, around 200 operators, relations, arrows and delimiters, sub- and superscripts including nested ones, \frac, \sqrt and \sqrt[n], accents, primes, \binom, \not, \underset, \mathbb, \mathcal, \mathfrak, \mathbf and \boldsymbol (including bold Greek and digits), function names, matrix and align environments, and text and spacing commands.

It matches $...$ , $$...$$, $...$ and \[...\]. Shell variables like $HOME and $5 are ignored, and equations wrapped across terminal rows still work.

Where Unicode runs out you get a readable fallback rather than a silent omission: lim_(x → 0) for a subscript it cannot raise, vec(v₁) when an argument has no bold form, and an unconverted command keeps its backslash.

Settings

Setting	Default	Meaning
`terminalLatexHover.showTooltip`	`true`	Show the Unicode rendering on hover
`terminalLatexHover.showLatexSource`	`false`	Append the original LaTeX after the Unicode
`terminalLatexHover.copyAsLatex`	`false`	Cmd+click copies LaTeX instead of Unicode
`terminalLatexHover.detectUndelimited`	`true`	Recognise equations on lines with no `$`

There is also a command, LaTeX Hover: Convert LaTeX to Unicode..., for converting an expression you paste in.

Limits

Unicode is not typeset maths, so nested fractions and other tall constructs flatten into parenthesised form. VS Code appends "(cmd + click)" to the hover and there is no way to remove it because this feature essentially hijacks the link feature in VS Code.

MIT licensed.

Terminal LaTeX Hover

Falk Wiegmann

Terminal LaTeX Hover

Coverage

Settings

Limits