Where are the LaTex equations in plots coming from?

[joa-quim]

Hi,

How do packages like GR and likely others used by Plots manage to display LaTex equations without installing the Tex/LaTex package? Is there a really minimal LaTex installation that is used under the hood?

Tanks.

[stevengj]

Matplotlib has its own LaTeX-like math renderer: Writing mathematical expressions — Matplotlib 3.3.3 documentation

[ericphanson]

GR has its own version of that code as well: https://github.com/sciapp/gr/blob/master/lib/gr/mathtex2.c

[joa-quim]

Thanks.