# LaTeX minus and plus signs in Pluto notebooks

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808>\
**Category:** Offtopic\
**Tags:** pluto\
**Created:** [January 22, 2021, 8:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808 "2021-01-22T20:49:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mthelm85](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mthelm85/32/224164_2.png) [@mthelm85](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mthelm85)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2021, 8:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/1 "2021-01-22T20:49:35Z")

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Does anyone else have the problem of LaTeX operators (seems to be mostly + and -) not rendering properly in Pluto notebooks? Oftentimes they aren’t rendered at all and sometimes, with the + operator, it’s only partially visible. For example:

\frac{df}{dx} = \lim\_{Δx \rightarrow 0} \frac{f(x + Δx) - f(x)}{Δx} = -2x

\nabla f(z) = [1 - exp(x\_{2} - x\_{1}), \ exp(x\_{2} - x\_{1})]

The first one renders just fine, but in the same notebook the second one appears as:

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/5/4/548b275f5d1667b5eebb3b3f158d269f48ce5aff.png)

I’ve noticed [Wikipedia seems to suffer from the same problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution#Cumulative_distribution_function) (have a look at the second version of the CDF - in my browser the - signs are missing) 🤨

Is this related to the browser or is there something that can be done with the code to ensure the +/- signs are properly rendered?

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**Author:** ![nilshg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nilshg/32/2283_2.png) [@nilshg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nilshg)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 7:14am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/2 "2021-01-23T07:14:33Z")

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I see the minus signs in the cdf, so maybe an issue with your browser?

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**Author:** ![mthelm85](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mthelm85/32/224164_2.png) [@mthelm85](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mthelm85)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 12:53pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/3 "2021-01-23T12:53:43Z")

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Hmmm, just looked at it on my phone and I see them. I have a very large monitor, I wonder if it has something to do with the resolution…

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**Author:** ![FPGro](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/fpgro/32/20822_2.png) [@FPGro](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/FPGro)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 2:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/4 "2021-01-23T14:38:19Z")

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Maybe. Just out of curiosity, do the lines appear if you zoom in on the equations?

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**Author:** ![TheLateKronos](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/thelatekronos/32/12824_2.png) [@TheLateKronos](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TheLateKronos)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/5 "2021-01-23T15:15:52Z")

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Just want to mention that I have also seen this in the last months - in Jupyter, and in wikipedia. The problem seemed to occur especially when something was raised to minus something, the minus would not be visible ( but the space for it was there). I have a small and kinda crappy computerscreen, so it could be a resolution-thing as you suggested.

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**Author:** ![mthelm85](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mthelm85/32/224164_2.png) [@mthelm85](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mthelm85)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/6 "2021-01-23T15:22:48Z")

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> [@FPGro](#):
>
> Maybe. Just out of curiosity, do the lines appear if you zoom in on the equations?

Ha! Yes - if I use the zoom function in my browser, they show up.

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**Author:** ![FPGro](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/fpgro/32/20822_2.png) [@FPGro](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/FPGro)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 3:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/7 "2021-01-23T15:49:49Z")

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Nice. Or not, however you want to see it. ^^  
I’ve definitely seen this but only on screens with comparatively low resolution, so it shouldn’t happen with your high-res screen, but who knows. You could try to play around with your systems font setting, try to force TrueType or ClearType or however it is called, that may fix it.  
Idk if there is something in the browser settings, too, but you may check that of course. I think font hinting is the word for that.

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**Author:** ![doit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@doit](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/doit)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 10:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/8 "2021-01-23T22:21:31Z")

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I have the same issue on my QHD screen, so I don’t think the problem is limited to low resolutions.  
But it’s definitely a resolution dependent rendering issue, probably more to do with MathJax than Pluto if the error also occurs on Wikipedia (although I never saw it there.) Does Wikipedia use MathJax?

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**Author:** ![woolstar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/woolstar/32/19992_2.png) [@woolstar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/woolstar)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2021, 10:44am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-minus-and-plus-signs-in-pluto-notebooks/53808/9 "2021-01-30T10:44:10Z")

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There seem to be multiple renderers for MathJax. The SVG one seems to be the one that was the default for quite some time, and has the problem with symbols for me. Switching to CHTML solved it, though the figured are now a bit larger and bolder.