Converting LaTeX into Unicode for email

Question

My standard procedure for writing mathematical email has been to use pidgin-LaTeX for some time now, and many of those I communicate with do the same. However, someone I know has recently started a few Unicode symbols for standard operations (arrows, etc) into the mix and this seems to greatly improve the readability.

When I've tried to do this, I spent a lot of time opening webpages looking for appropriate Unicode symbols and copy-pasting them. This roughly doubles my writing time. In an ideal world I could hit some kind of conversion button, or in a less ideal world I could put together a toolbar of commonly-used symbols.

Are there any methods for easily looking up some standard LaTeX symbols as Unicode, and further for doing so in an easily-accessible manner?

Answer 1

Following on from ipavlic's comment to the main question, here's a script that I threw together for almost exactly this purpose:

https://github.com/loopspace/latexToUTF

(My old PHP-enabled website has gone so I no longer have a "live" version, just the code on github. One day when I have a moment I will try to get it back up again.)

It was actually for typing unicode into webpage text boxes rather than email.

There is allegedly an extension to detexify that will give you the unicode instead of the LaTeX symbol, but I haven't seen a working version of it so can't comment further.

Answer 2

You may hit M-x describe-input-method RET TeX RET in Emacs. Here is a fragment of what you get:

\"x ẍ    \^h ĥ    \~e  ẽ    \=\AE Ǣ    \euro €    \doteq ≐    \square  □    \spadesuit  ♠    \vartriangleleft     ⊲
\"y ÿ    \^i î    \~i  ĩ    \=\ae ǣ    \e{e} ė    \equiv ≡    \subset  ⊂    \subseteqq  ⊆    \circlearrowright    ↻
\'A Á    \^j ĵ    \~n  ñ    \={A} Ā    \flat ♭    \frac1 ⅟    \succeq  ≽    \subsetneq  ⊊    \downrightharpoon    ⇂
\'C Ć    \^o ô    \~o  õ    \={E} Ē    \flqq «    \frown ⌢    \supset  ⊃    \supseteqq  ⊇    \ntrianglerighteq    ⋭

(By the way, this input method might be a nice way to actually type your emails - you type the TeX way, Emacs converts it to Unicode on the fly. And you don't have to use Emacs as your email client - even though it's a reasonable option - since you may configure it as an external editor in your MUA)

Answer 3

For Gmail users, the quickest way to convert LaTeX to a mixture of unicode + html must be the following addon called "GmailTeX":

http://alexeev.org/gmailtex.html

It is currently available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Once installed, you can simply type $G\rtimes_\phi H$ to obtain G ⋊_φ H, with φ displayed as a subscript via html markup.

Answer 4

Here's yet another option: unicode it.

Answer 5

TeX to Unicode, a Chrome extension.

Convert TeX to Unicode by pressing Alt + w in input boxes.

https://golopot.github.io/tex-to-unicode/

(I am the author.)(Github)

Answer 6

Here's another Unicode <-> LaTeX conversion tool

http://www.johndcook.com/unicode_latex.html

Courtesy of John D. Cook

Answer 7

You might find this tool handy:

http://latex2unicode.herokuapp.com/

It relies on an explicitly defined PEG grammar, and is probably more sophisticated and more robust than most other similar tools. It's also used by JabRef.

Answer 8

MacOSX answer for simple substitutions, not complicated equations.

Set up some replacement rules in System Preferences | Keyboard | Text. Then you can set \alpha to automatically change to α, etc. Other non-TeX substitutions like => to ⇒ can also be useful.

This is similar in scope to mbork's answer for emacs, but with rules that apply across many applications on one platform... but you have to set up the rules yourself.

I believe that this only works in applications that use the built-in MacOSX text-editing functionality. e.g. on my machine, it works in Apple Mail, Safari, TextEdit, TeXshop, but doesn't work in Firefox, BBEdit.

Fortunately it is per application, so it isn't available in Terminal, and you can turn it off in TeXshop!

On my last machine I used this sporadically for web forums, LMSs and e-mail, but I haven't set them up on my current machine, so I guess I haven't found them that useful.

Answer 9

Another option - I also made a little app. Initially based on the XML document described in this answer, but supports more commands.

https://digitalheir.github.io/latex-to-unicode-converter/

Especially useful if you're looking for a JavaScript API to parse / convert LaTeX.