# Missing $ inserted because of \left I was trying to use the answer from this question to make a png of a math equation. I'm using the very simple file: \documentclass[convert={density=300,size=800x800,outext=.png},border=1pt]{standalone} \begin{document} $a = \left\lceil\frac{b}{c}\right\rceil$ \end{document}  Which generates the error ! Missing$ inserted
<inserted text>
$l.6 a = \left \lceil\frac{b}{c}\right\rceil  Obviously this is an error with the actual .tex source itself, and doesn't really have anything to do with convert, but do note that I have the ImageMagick utilities installed and in working order. In fact, I was able to generate a simple png using the inline math environment. Why doesn't \LaTeX like my \left? • Welcome to TeX.SX! Use $\displaystyle...$ instead of $...$. See tex.stackexchange.com/a/417837/4427 for an explanation. – egreg Mar 1 '18 at 17:25 • @egreg that worked. Why though? I've written loads of LaTeX and I've always used $ or  for multiline math. Also: can I do linebreaks inside of \displaystyle? If you'd like to write up an answer that addresses these questions, I'd be happy to accept it. – anoneemus Mar 1 '18 at 17:29 • Standalone is a bit special. Not at pc, but have you tried the varwidth option? That might help. – daleif Mar 1 '18 at 17:31 • Well, you should never use  in LaTeX. For line breaks like in align, use \begin{aligned}...\end{aligned}. – egreg Mar 1 '18 at 17:31 • You are not answering the question? What is being centered here the mwe has nothing to center as it is one line. Again be a lot more specific, then perhaps people can give you better advise. Right now we're flying blanks because of limited information – daleif Mar 1 '18 at 17:39 ## 1 Answer standalone is a bit special, because it's aimed at typesetting a single object for conversion to PNG (or other graphic format) or for later inclusion in another document. So its normal way of doing is making a box much like \mbox, where one cannot use \[.... There's a simple way out use inline math mode with \displaystyle that makes formulas like between $ and $. \documentclass{standalone} \usepackage{amsmath} \begin{document}\displaystyle
a = \left\lceil\frac{b}{c}\right\rceil
\end{document}  Another possibility is to use varwidth: \documentclass[varwidth]{standalone} \usepackage{amsmath} \begin{document} $a = \left\lceil\frac{b}{c}\right\rceil$ \end{document}  but beware this won't work with multiline alignments. For this you can use the “inner” forms such as aligned and gathered: \documentclass{standalone} \usepackage{amsmath} \begin{document}\begin{aligned}
a &= \left\lceil\frac{b}{c}\right\rceil\\
&= \left\lceil\frac{d}{e}\right\rceil
\end{aligned}\$
\end{document}

• For the record, I was able to get multiline arguments to "work" inside of $..$ with just varwidth (without amsmath), but to be fair it wasn't pretty and probably shouldn't be done. – anoneemus Mar 1 '18 at 18:05