LaTeX Visualizer

A lightweight VS Code preview for LaTeX prose and formulas. It renders the active .tex file in a side preview without requiring a TeX installation, using KaTeX for math and simple HTML approximations for common document structures.

Features

• Open a live preview from the editor title button or the Open LaTeX Preview command.
• Render inline math, display math, and common math environments with KaTeX.
• Show readable previews for headings, paragraphs, figures, tables, and algorithm blocks.
• Use image placeholders that preserve declared width / height information.
• Double-click preview content to jump back to the corresponding source line, with word-level targeting for text where possible.
• Zoom preview content with Ctrl + mouse wheel.
• Keep rendering local to the current file; malformed formulas show local KaTeX errors instead of breaking the whole preview.

Requirements

No TeX distribution is required. The extension uses bundled JavaScript dependencies.

Settings

• latexVisualizer.previewFontSize: base preview font size in pixels.
• latexVisualizer.previewZoom.default: default preview zoom percentage.
• latexVisualizer.previewZoom.min: minimum preview zoom percentage.
• latexVisualizer.previewZoom.max: maximum preview zoom percentage.
• latexVisualizer.previewZoom.step: zoom step used by Ctrl + mouse wheel.

Known Limitations

• This is an approximate preview, not a TeX compiler.
• Layout details such as page breaks, floats, and package-specific formatting are not reproduced.
• Cross-file projects, bibliography resolution, and full macro expansion are not implemented.
• TikZ and PDF generation are intentionally out of scope for the current release.

Development

npm install
npm run compile
npm run lint
npm run sample

npm run sample checks the formula renderer against the local samples/*.tex fixtures.