# LaTeX preview should do a live update

Having to wait several seconds for LaTeX preview each time makes it very difficult to write posts that have a lot of typeset mathematics - it would be a big improvement make the updates live.

• This has already been taken care of: http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/689/latex-rendering-delay Sep 20 '10 at 0:33
• @Tom Stephens: But that userscript patch only works for FireFox, right? Sep 20 '10 at 3:59
• @Tom Stephens, this is not a proper solution! (Ad-hoc)
– anon
Sep 20 '10 at 9:46

Slowing down the thought-to-posting conversion, and having users possibly rely on pencil and paper instead of starting to write at the computer screen, should increase the accuracy rate of answers. I prefer a slight increase in accuracy instead of allowing postings at the earliest possible nanosecond.

• I'm just talking about getting the LaTeX formatting right.
– anon
Sep 20 '10 at 9:47
• I think we are talking about the same thing: the delay between modifying TeX in the editing box when writing an answer, and update of the graphical TeX rendering in the preview that appears below it. A few seconds of delay seems to me to be a good thing, because the timescale for devising and posting answers is much longer, and extending it by this few seconds helps to inhibit the reflex for immediate-but-wrong posting.
– T..
Sep 20 '10 at 15:50
• The issue is not underdeveloped equations, but fully developed equations being typed out in TeX syntax. I may have worked everything out on paper, but I'm not fluent and confident in my TeX syntax and would appreciate some feedback as I write out my developed equation in a basically foreign language, unsure if I am correct or not in my syntax. Sep 20 '10 at 17:18
• T.., This is really absurd.
– anon
Sep 20 '10 at 18:30
• @muad: I'm aware it's a minority view -- which is why I shared it.
– T..
Sep 20 '10 at 19:17