# Comparison of free, on-the-fly, web based LaTeX equation compilers

The Blog post Online LaTeX is a great overview online of the services available for typesetting LaTeX. There are a lot of sites providing inline equation compilation which one is the best in terms of quality and ease of use. I wanted to give a visual comparison of all of the service which provide inline equation generation require no software installation.

In the end I think I lean toward the Codecogs png or gif version for quality and transparent background. In terms of use they are all pretty much the same. Codecogs is the only site providing swf output which could be nice for a really large equation. Check it out and decide for yourself.

NOTE: MathTran and sitmo (the last two) actually render the equation incorrectly though it is exactly the same in every case.

Codecogs (gif)

<img src="http://www.codecogs.com/gif.latex?z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t" />

$z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t$

Codecogs (png)

<img src="http://www.codecogs.com/png.latex?z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t.gif" />

$z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t$

Codecogs (swf)

<embed width="200" height="50" src="http://www.codecogs.com/swf.latex.swf?z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="top" scale="showall" wmode="window" devicefont="false" bgcolor="#ffffff" menu="true" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" ></embed>

mathTeX

<img src="http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mathtex.cgi?z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t"/>

$z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t$

mimeTeX

<img src="http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mimetex.cgi?z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t" />

$z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t$

<img src="http://www.sitmo.com/gg/latex/latex2png.2.php?z=100&eq=z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t"/>

MathTran

<img src="http://mathtran.open.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mathtran?D=1;tex=z_t = \displaystyle\sum^p_{j=1}\phi_jz_{t-j}+\sigma_\epsilon\xi_t"/>