When ChatGPT outputs LaTeX equations, it would be really useful to be able to copy the LaTeX source. For example, by being able to right-click on it to view the TeX commands, as on Stack Exchange.
Currently it’s quite awkward to have a conversation about maths, because I have to re-type all the equations it outputs in order to tell it what to change. It would also be useful if I want to use its LaTeX output in another document.
This will get you the copyable code for any output using formulae. You can further instruct the AI to create duplicate of rendered and code block latex.
Yeah, but it’s still kinda awkward. Currently I’m having a long back and forth with it in LaTeX. I want to see its output rendered so I can read it, but I also want to be able to easily copy it so I can correct it when it makes a mistake. I know I can ask it for the source, but it would be much more convenient if I could just to this from the GUI.
Yes, a “copy code”, like the code block offers, may be a useful addition for some, when you don’t want a clipboard copy of the whole reply which gives you bare response.
99.9% won’t know what to do with LaTeX, though.
99.9% of users? or 99.9% that ChatGPT won’t be able to parse latex?
It seems confident in its ability to do the latter:
Yes we know that AI models can understand and produce text about LaTeX.
\textsf{Even the forum can understand } \textbf{LaTeX}
GPT-4 is very optimistic how many people would though:
LaTeX is primarily used in academia, particularly in mathematics, computer science, physics, and engineering. According to the World Bank, about 216.6 million students were enrolled in tertiary education worldwide in 2018. Assuming that a significant portion of these students are in fields that use LaTeX, and factoring in professionals who also use it, we could estimate that perhaps 1-2% of the world’s population knows how to use LaTeX. This would be roughly 78-156 million people out of a global population of approximately 7.8 billion.
Go survey moms at the mall.
Yes, but moms at the mall aren’t really the relevant demographic here, are they? I feel like you could go to literally any issue on literally any github repo and say “the average mom at the mall doesn’t need this” and it would be a true comment, yet also an irrelevant and annoying one.
(Which is not to say that mums are any less likely to know LaTeX than anyone else of course.)
You are correct, the target demo is ChatGPT users that enjoy making bad ASCII art…and then one must weigh the utility for a few vs the confusion of the many, even people asking math questions.
I’m asking for an option to view the LaTeX code by right-clicking on an equation. I think most users are technical people who at least know what LaTeX is, but those who aren’t are not going to be seeing any equations, let alone right-clicking on them, let alone somehow managing to be confused by a drop-down menu that appears when they do so.
I’m using Copy ChatGPT LaTeX on Firefox (I can’t include the link but it’s easy to find on the Plugin store of Firefox):
Only hovering over a formula shows the possibility to copy the code by left-clicking on it.
It’s great!
The ability to generate LaTeX seems to be working great for me. I am having no luck with copying it and pasting into Google Docs though. I have tried the recommended add-ins fro Chrome but it doesn’t work with Chrome or with the native Mac GPT app. Any further suggestions? Is their someplace I can upvote this request?
There is a workaround that might work, but I don’t know because I’m not really a google docs user. This workaround might also be helpful for others - it didn’t exist when I wrote this request.
If you mouse over one of ChatGPT’s messages, some icons appear in the bottom left. The second of these copies the message to the clipboard, so if you paste it into a text editor you can see the whole message, including the LaTeX source.
If you have an appropriate plugin you might be able to get Google docs to render this. Note however that ChatGPT uses \( and \) for inline math and \[ and \] for display math. Depending on how LaTeX rendering works in google docs you might have to change these into $ and $$ or something else.
The underlying cause is that the rendering engine for ChatGPT uses katex + MathML rather than MathJax which lets you copy the underlying \LaTeX source. There are almost certainly any number of workarounds but it’s probably not a hugely pressing issue for them since, as has been stated previously, this is not a feature many people would end up using.
A quick search found this extension,
I’ve never used it and I can’t vouch for it, but it’s open source, so you can evaluate it yourself.
