ProseMark for VS Code — LaTeX (MathJax) integration
Companion extension that enables rendered math in the ProseMark editor for $...$ and $$...$$ using MathJax and @prosemark/latex.
The documentation for the ProseMark libraries can be found at https://prosemark.com.
Features
- Renders LaTeX using MathJax
- Since parsing is done in the core extension, hybrid rules (based on LaTeX and Typst) are used to decide the render mode: double dollar signs (
$$...$$) and dollar signs with padding ($ ... $) are rendered in display mode; single, unpadded dollar signs $...$ are rendered in inline mode.
How to use
- Install ProseMark and this ProseMark - LaTeX math integration.
- Open a
.md file in ProseMark and fold math spans to see rendered output.
Extension settings
This extension does not contribute VS Code settings yet.
Known issues
Please report bugs on the GitHub issues page.
Developing this extension
After bun install, run bun run build. Vite produces dist/webview/webview.js and copies tex-svg.js plus sre/ from the mathjax npm package into dist/webview/mathjax/ via @prosemark/latex/vite-plugin-mathjax. The webview loads MathJax with url-import from that folder (package URL from webview.asWebviewUri). Bump the mathjax dependency when you want a different MathJax version.
MathJax load modes
This extension uses url-import: the extension host passes a webview URL for dist/webview/mathjax/, and the webview dynamically imports tex-svg.js from there. That keeps webview.js small (~47 KB) instead of bundling ~1.8 MB of MathJax into the IIFE.
Why MathJax SRE (speech) is off in Visual Studio Code
MathJax’s combined tex-svg startup enables accessibility by default. At runtime it starts SRE roughly like this:
- Create a blob (or
data:) worker — VS Code allows this.
- Inside that worker, call
importScripts(<webview-url>/sre/speech-worker.js).
Stock VS Code webviews do not allow importScripts (or dynamic import) of extension / webview resource URLs inside workers. Official docs: Using Web Workers. The failure looks like:
NetworkError: Failed to execute 'importScripts' on 'WorkerGlobalScope':
The script at 'https://file+.vscode-resource.vscode-cdn.net/…/sre/speech-worker.js' failed to load.
After that, tex2svgPromise never settles, so math widgets stay empty. Copying sre/ next to tex-svg.js (and serving it via asWebviewUri) does not fix this — the file is already loadable as a normal resource; the block is specifically importScripts in a worker.
Cursor allows that importScripts, so this extension enables MathJax a11y when vscode.env.appName contains "Cursor" and leaves it disabled for Visual Studio Code and other hosts (fail closed). See src/host-mathjax-a11y.ts.
If you switch this extension to static-import, keep the same host split (or always disable a11y) — see @prosemark/latex README.
