LaTeX.to / Engines

LaTeX engines

All the LaTeX engines run online here, inside your browser: pick one, open its example document and compile it, with nothing to install and no login.

How it works

Pick an engine, click Open in LaTeX.to, then click Preview or press Ctrl+Enter. The example opens with its PDF already there, and the first line of main.tex says which engine it runs on.

LaTeX · Plain TeX · ConTeXt · Japanese · Figures · Bibliography tools · Live math preview

LaTeX

• What it is: The three engines almost every LaTeX document is written for, plus the two DVI routes: dvips for PostScript and dvipdfmx.
• When to use it: Any document with a \documentclass. Start new ones on LuaLaTeX, use pdfLaTeX when a template asks for it, and LaTeX for PSTricks, psfrag and EPS figures.

• LuaLaTeX Recommended Active, 2007 TeX with the Lua scripting language built in, plus modern fonts. The engine the LaTeX team now recommends.
• pdfLaTeX Recommended Maintained, 1997 The default engine, and the one nearly every template expects.
• XeLaTeX Unmaintained, 2004 Unicode input and any OpenType font, through fontspec.
• LaTeX Maintained, 1984 The PostScript route: latex, dvips and one Ghostscript run.
• LaTeX (dvipdfmx) Maintained, 1984 The DVI route: latex writes DVI, dvipdfmx makes the PDF.

Plain TeX

• What it is: The same engines running Knuth's plain format instead of LaTeX; the file ends in \bye.
• When to use it: Package writing, macro experiments, TeXbook exercises and tiny one-page documents.

• LuaTeX Recommended Active, 2007 Plain TeX with an embedded Lua interpreter.
• pdfTeX Recommended Maintained, 1997 Plain TeX in the Knuth tradition, no document class.
• XeTeX Unmaintained, 2004 Plain TeX with Unicode text and quoted font names.

ConTeXt

• What it is: An alternative to LaTeX on the same TeX engines: no document class, one setup language, Lua built in.
• When to use it: Documents you design yourself, books and house styles, and anything written for ConTeXt.

• ConTeXt Recommended Active, 2019 The current ConTeXt, LMTX on LuaMetaTeX. One setup language, Lua inside.
• ConTeXt (MkIV) Frozen, 2007 The frozen LuaTeX branch, for documents written against it.

Japanese

• What it is: The pTeX family, with Japanese spacing and line breaking built into the engine; DVI in, PDF out.
• When to use it: Japanese documents and templates. Start new ones on upLaTeX.

• upLaTeX Recommended Maintained, 2007 Unicode Japanese typesetting beyond the JIS X 0208 set.
• pLaTeX Maintained, 1987 Classic Japanese typesetting with JIS spacing and kinsoku.

Figures

• What it is: Not engines but the two languages a LaTeX document draws its figures in, TikZ and PSTricks.
• When to use it: A diagram, a plot or a geometric construction written in the source next to the text, in the document's own fonts.

• TikZ Recommended Active, 2005 The drawing language every engine here renders, pgfplots included.
• PSTricks Maintained, 1993 PostScript drawings, on the LaTeX, XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX routes.

Bibliography tools

• What it is: Not engines but the programs that build the reference list between LaTeX passes.
• When to use it: Any document with citations: BibTeX for journal templates, biblatex with Biber for your own.

• biblatex (Biber) Recommended Active, 2009 Modern citations with Unicode sorting and flexible styles.
• BibTeX Recommended Frozen, 1985 The classic bibliography workflow, and the most widely supported.

Live math preview

• What it is: KaTeX, which renders formulas as you type and exports them as images; no compile, no PDF.
• When to use it: A formula for a slide, a chat or a web page.

• KaTeX Recommended Active, 2014 Not a compiler: math rendered as you type, exported as an image.

How the engine gets picked

Every example on this site names its engine on the first line of main.tex, % !TeX program = xelatex, and that line works in your own documents too. Without it, leave the dropdown on Auto: the compiler reads the document, picks the engine and the bibliography tool itself, and the status line says what it chose.

Drawing figures

The two languages a document draws its own figures in have pages here as well. TikZ renders on every engine on this site. PSTricks writes PostScript, so it needs the LaTeX, XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX route, and TikZ vs PSTricks answers which one to write a new figure in.

Coming from Overleaf

All Overleaf projects compile on LaTeX.to, and the Overleaf alternatives page compares the other ways out.

• The engines Overleaf offers: pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, and LaTeX (latex, then dvips, then Ghostscript) for its LaTeX setting.
• The engines Overleaf does not have: LaTeX (dvipdfmx), pdfTeX, XeTeX and LuaTeX for plain TeX, ConTeXt and ConTeXt MkIV, and pLaTeX and upLaTeX for Japanese.

1. In Overleaf, open Menu, then Download, then Source. You get a zip file of the project.
2. Open LaTeX.to.
3. Click the "+" button next to Projects.
4. Click Import ZIP and pick that file.
5. The project appears under Projects, named after the zip file. Click its main .tex file to open it.
6. Click Preview or press Ctrl+Enter.

From a coding agent or the command line

• Coding agents: npx skills add latexto/skills installs the latex-to-pdf and latex-to-image skills, then tell your agent "compile ./thesis to a PDF".
• Command line: npm install -g latexto, then latexto pdf ./thesis compiles a project to PDF and latexto image formula.tex renders a formula or a page to PNG.
• Picking an engine: add --engine xelatex or --bib biblatex-biber, with the id shown on each page here; a wrong one ends the run with the accepted list. With an agent, name the engine in the request ("compile this with LuaLaTeX"); the skill knows the same ids. Leave the option out and Auto decides, as in the editor.

The Agents and CLI page has the full reference.

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