It is based on very simple idea. User feeds QuickLaTeX.com with the piece of LaTeX code of the formula to be published. QuickLaTeX.com converts it to the image stored on the server and returns URL for that image to be accessed in Internet. User inserts the URL into web page in place where formula should be and that’s it – next time when somebody opens that web page in the browser he/she will see the formula.

One important feature which makes QuickLaTeX.com distinct from the others is: besides just converting LaTeX code into image it provides information on how to position generated image on the web page properly so that the formula and surrounding text will blend together well.

Let’s see an example. Assuming that our formula is just square root of 2 we build such request to the server:

http://www.quicklatex.com/latex.f?formula=\sqrt{2}

It returns:

0
http://quicklatex.com/cache/ql_d21848cdd835abcb491be1f151e9b6c6.gif 3

Where first line – 0 indicates that our LaTeX code have no errors and have been converted to image successfully. Second line gives us image’s URL and vertical displacement of image relative to text baseline. Equipped with this information we can easily place formula on our page using HTML:

<img src="http://quicklatex.com/cache/ql_d21848cdd835abcb491be1f151e9b6c6.gif"
style="vertical-align: -3px; border: none;" />

Although such routine may seems to be little bit overwhelming (especially if want to publish article with hundreds of formulas) it is not necessary to do it manually for every formula. Instead, if you are using CMS (content management system, such as Joomla!, Drupal, phpBB, etc) as a basis for you website you can tune it to do this task automatically.

For example, I’ve developed plugin for famous blogging platform Wordpress which allows user to publish math easy by writing LaTeX code between [tex] [/tex] tags. Plugin automatically connects to QuickLaTeX.com every time it finds these tags on web page and replaces LaTeX code with the image returned by the server. If you want to see how it works visit my blog.

Now I’m working on plugins for other CMS. I appreciate your contributions to the development of the plugins, so feel free to send me any code or your suggestions. Your support is very much welcome!
List of available plugins are below:
WP-QuickLaTeX
Usage of QuickLaTeX.com service is completely free. Although link “Powered by QuickLaTeX.com” on your site would be highly appreciated I don’t demand it in exchange for service. Just letting me know you are using it would be enough. Use the comments below!