# Can math formula added to the markdown **URL:** \ **Category:** Extensions\ **Created:** [April 23, 2019, 4:03am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140 "2019-04-23T04:03:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Youmio](https://cdn.commonmark.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@Youmio](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/Youmio)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 4:03am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140/1 "2019-04-23T04:03:38Z")
Can greek letter, math formulation spec added to commonMark ---
**Author:** ![Crissov](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/crissov/32/1455_2.png) [@Crissov](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/Crissov)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 6:11pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140/2 "2019-04-23T18:11:09Z")
You can use Unicode for Greek letters or HTML (named) character references (vulgo “entities”) like `α`. Inline formulas and block equations would be the domain of a future _math extension_, building upon existing conventions. ---
**Author:** ![cben](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/cben/32/407_2.png) [@cben](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/cben)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 12:11pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140/3 "2019-05-28T12:11:42Z")
There have been previous discussions: > [@MathJax extension for LaTeX equations](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/mathjax-extension-for-latex-equations/698/20): > > Perhaps fences ```` and ~~~~should differ slightly from each other: one is always displayed verbatim (plus syntax highlighting etc.), while the other should be parser into something more useful if safe and possible. Users would specify the language as the first part the info string as is common practice for source code.~~~~ tex x^2 ~~~~. \
\x\\2\ \ ```` tex x^2 ```` . \\x^2\\ This does not prevent ext… > [@Mathematics extension](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/mathematics-extension/457): > > I’m sure that this wouldn’t be to popular for the diehard mathematicians, as they all swear by using LaTeX, which can be converted to HTML by MathJax. That’s probably similar to that there will always be people that swear by using HTML even if they have the option to use Markdown. But for people that just sometimes want to use a little bit of mathematics in their markdown chat/discussion/article/blogpost etc. having a mathematics extension to markdown could be quite useful. I’m thinking about … > [@Ignore LaTeX-like Math mode (or parse it)](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/ignore-latex-like-math-mode-or-parse-it/1926): > > I am writing a lot of blog articles about computer science / mathematics. This means I want formulas to be rendered in a similar way like TeX does it. I don’t expect CommonMark to specify / implement this (although it would be nice). I just would appreciate it, if CommonMark would not mess with blocks of TeX-like math. Example The source This is a set: \(A = \{1,2\}\) gets transferred into \This is a set: (A = {1,2})\ whereas I would like it to be \This is a set: \(A = \{1,2\}\)\ … Math extensions are [widely implemented](https://github.com/cben/mathdown/wiki/math-in-markdown), but there is unfortunately no consensus on the syntax. If you want to discuss, let’s continue one of the above threads. ---
**Author:** ![amix](https://cdn.commonmark.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@amix](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/amix)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2019, 11:02am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140/4 "2019-09-11T11:02:11Z")
> [@cben](#): > > Math extensions are widely implemented, but there is unfortunately no consensus on the syntax. If you want to discuss, let’s continue one of the above threads. Not directing this to you, it’s more of a reminder to us all (or the board admins): maybe it would make sense, to merge these threads or to restart discussion in one, and only one thread per feature / extension 😉 ---
**Author:** ![drorata](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/drorata/32/1806_2.png) [@drorata](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/drorata)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 6:23am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140/5 "2020-02-28T06:23:23Z")
I’m following up on this thread merely because it is the most recent one. [https://github.com/yzhang-gh/vscode-markdown](https://github.com/yzhang-gh/vscode-markdown) is providing very nice support of math using the `$`. It doesn’t support `$$` (display mode). ---
**Author:** ![yxs](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/yxs/32/1842_2.png) [@yxs](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/yxs)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 2:41am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140/6 "2020-04-02T02:41:18Z")
Yes, just a few days ago, the development version was compatible with GitLab Flavored MarkDown by supporting [Markdown+Math](https://github.com/goessner/mdmath). You can now use vscode to edit locally and view it in the GitLab repository. The only flaw I found is that for performance reasons, GitLab truncates after rendering a thousand characters contained in mathematical formulas on the mobile end. I very much hope to see GitHub follow up. ---
**Author:** ![suruena](https://cdn.commonmark.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@suruena](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/suruena)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2021, 3:05pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140/7 "2021-07-26T15:05:48Z")
This is an old topic, but still very relevant and not resolved yet I think. Mathematical formulas are very important in several contexts, and having a standard syntax in CommonMark would be very desirable. LaTeX is probably the most used syntax in the diferent Markdown flavors, however in my opinion LaTeX is not very readable (even a simple formulas like `1 / 2 = 0.5` is written as `\frac{1}{2} = 0.5`) which is against the main design goal of Markdown. For that reason I think AsciiMath would be much more readable: [http://asciimath.org/](http://asciimath.org/) With AsciiMath the natural formula is used instead `1 / 2 = 0.5` (which is pretty printed by MathJax), and it also provides greek letters like `\alpha`. AsciiMath supports pretty advanced mathematical symbols (and those continue to be highly readable) so I think would be enough in the vast majority of the cases. My team uses AsciiMath inside Doxygen comments (using Markdown) as internal documentation of our code (i.e. not usually read as HTML by directly as plain text in the source code), and the readability is now much better than when we used the LaTeX syntax (which is the usual approach in Doxygen). ---
**Author:** ![BenjaminHoegh](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/benjaminhoegh/32/2298_2.png) [@BenjaminHoegh](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/BenjaminHoegh)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 4:25pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/can-math-formula-added-to-the-markdown/3140/8 "2021-08-24T16:25:06Z")
Indeed a math standard would be nice to have. but I’m unsure of this is a thing that CommonMark can handle as it is a very large topic