Latex equations using SymPy

SymPy is a symbolic mathematics package in Python. Even if you are not interested in performing symbolic mathematical calculations, you should probably install it for one very useful function: sympy.latex().

sympy.latex() converts mathematical expressions into Latex equations.

SymPy can create images of equations, but the images in the following examples are dynamically generated using the online latex equation editor at Code Cogs.

>>> x = Symbol("x")
>>> a =  1/( (x+2)*(x+1) )
>>> latex(a)
\frac{1}{\left(x + 1\right) \left(x + 2\right)}

>>> latex(Integral(x**2+sin(x)*exp(x**2),x))
\int x^{2} + e^{x^{2}} \operatorname{sin}\left(x\right)\,dx

>>> latex(Eq(Integral(x,x), x**2/2))
\int x\,dx = \frac{1}{2} x^{2}

>>> a = Integral(x, (x, 1, 2))
>>> s = Eq(a, a.doit())
>>> latex(s)
\int_{1}^{2} x\,dx = \frac{3}{2}

I think this is easier than using visual equation editors since we can simply type the equation as a Python expression, and have it converted into Latex with just one function call.

Installing SymPy is also very easy:

$ pip install sympy

In addition to generating latex equations, SymPy can also pretty print the equation on to the terminal, and can generate “png” and “dvi” images of the equations. The SymPy tutorial and manual give several examples of these.

If you want a fully featured mathematical package that is free and open source, then get Sage. Sage is a symbolic mathematics application that uses Python as its underlying language. It uses SymPy, and has many more formatting and plotting functions.

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