Because it’s ridiculously hard to get text layouts out of latex, and the only feasible way, without reimplementing the layouting, is to export to svg and draw that - which requires a backend that knows how to draw svgs.
Makie is getting both ways integrated tightly soon with:
GitHub - JuliaPlots/MakieTeX.jl: TeX integration in Makie (svg route)
GitHub - Kolaru/MathTeXEngine.jl: A latex math mode engine in pure Julia. (own parsing + layouting, thanks to @Kolaru )
A little teaser from @jules, who started a deeper integration of MathTexEngine:
lines(cumsum(randn(1000)),
axis = (
title = L"x + y - sin(x) × tan(y) + \sqrt{2}",
xlabel = L"\lim_{x →\infty} A^j v_{(a + b)_k}^i \sqrt{2} x!= \sqrt{\frac{1+6}{4+a+g}}\int_{0}^{2π} \sin(x) dx",
ylabel = L"x + y - sin(x) × tan(y) + \sqrt{2}",
),
figure = (fontsize = 18, font = "NewCM10-Regular.otf")
)
