I Stopped Memorizing LaTeX Math Commands. Here's What I Use Instead.

The confession

I've been using LaTeX for four years. I still can't type \begin{pmatrix} without checking the syntax first.

It's not that I'm bad at LaTeX — I've written two theses and a dozen papers with it. The output is beautiful, the typesetting is unmatched, and I genuinely prefer it over Word for anything with math. But the gap between "I know what equation I want" and "I know the LaTeX command for it" has been a constant source of friction.

Every time I need a symbol I don't use daily — \nabla, \partial, \underbrace, \overset — my hands leave the keyboard, I open a browser tab, search for "latex [thing I want]", find the command, copy it, and come back. Thirty seconds here, a minute there. Over a full writing session, it adds up to a surprising amount of dead time.

The real cost isn't the time, though. It's the context switching. I'm thinking about a proof, I need to write a summation with specific bounds, and suddenly I'm thinking about LaTeX syntax instead of mathematics. By the time I get the command right, I've lost the thread of what I was trying to express.

What I tried (and why it wasn't enough)

Cheat sheets: I printed a two-page LaTeX math reference and pinned it to my wall. Helpful for the 30 most common commands, but my field (statistics) uses a lot of niche notation that no cheat sheet covers comprehensively.

Editor snippets: VS Code with LaTeX Workshop has decent snippets. But memorizing snippet triggers is just memorizing a different set of commands. The cognitive overhead moves, it doesn't disappear.

Online equation editors: Tools like Mathcha and EqualX let you build equations visually. But they're separate from your editor. You build the equation in one window, copy the LaTeX, paste it into your .tex file. Better, but still a context switch.

What I wanted was something inside my editor — a way to visually build equations without leaving the document I'm working on.

TeX64's visual math palette

A colleague showed me TeX64 a few months ago. It's a LaTeX editor for macOS that does the usual things — project sidebar, PDF preview, SyncTeX — but it has one feature I hadn't seen integrated into a real editor before: a visual equation palette.

Here's how it works: you open the palette, and you see math symbols organized by category — fractions, integrals, matrices, Greek letters, arrows, operators, accents. Click on one, and the corresponding LaTeX command is inserted at your cursor. As you build the equation, you see a real-time rendered preview of what it looks like.

The key thing: the output is standard LaTeX. It's not a proprietary format. After the palette inserts \frac{\partial f}{\partial x}, that's exactly what sits in your .tex file. You can hand-edit it, rearrange it, wrap it in an align environment — whatever you need.

Why this is different from online equation editors

The palette isn't a separate tool. It's part of the editor. You're writing your document, you need a symbol, you click it, and you keep writing. No copy-paste, no window switching, no export step. The equation is in your source the moment you click.

And because you see the generated LaTeX every time you use the palette, you start learning the commands naturally. After a month of clicking the matrix button, I now type \begin{bmatrix} from muscle memory. The palette taught me without making me study.

Equation OCR: the other game-changer

TeX64 also has built-in equation OCR. You take a screenshot of a math expression — from a textbook, a PDF, or even handwritten notes — paste it into TeX64, and it converts the image to editable LaTeX code.

I use this constantly when referencing equations from other papers. PDF math doesn't copy as LaTeX (obviously — it's rendered glyphs, not source code). Before, I'd manually retype everything. Now I screenshot and paste. A complex equation that would take 5 minutes to type appears in 3 seconds.

It works with handwriting too. I photographed my whiteboard notes after a meeting, pasted them in, and got usable LaTeX. Not perfect — some subscripts needed fixing — but it got me 90% of the way there.

The AI assistant (Axiom)

There's also an AI assistant called Axiom built into TeX64. You can describe what you want in plain English — "write the probability density function of a multivariate normal distribution" — and it generates the LaTeX.

What makes Axiom different from just asking ChatGPT is that it has context about your project. It reads your .tex files, your compile logs, your bibliography. So when it generates code, it fits your existing notation and packages.

Axiom also reads compile errors. When I get a cryptic Missing $ inserted or Undefined control sequence, Axiom looks at the log, pinpoints the line, and shows me a diff with the fix. One click to apply. This alone has saved me hours.

Honest limitations

TeX64 is macOS only. No Windows, no Linux. If you're not on a Mac, this isn't for you.

You still need a TeX distribution installed — MacTeX or TeX Live. TeX64 is the editor, not the compiler.

The AI and OCR features have a free tier, but heavy usage requires a paid plan.

And it's a local-first tool. All compilation happens on your Mac, no internet required. That's a feature if you value offline capability (I write on planes and trains regularly), but it means there's no Overleaf-style real-time collaboration.

The workflow shift

My LaTeX writing sessions used to be: think → try to remember command → fail → search → copy → paste → resume thinking. Now it's: think → click or describe → keep thinking.

The palette handles symbols and structures I can't recall. OCR handles equations from external sources. Axiom handles complex expressions I can describe but not encode. And for the commands I do know, I just type them directly — TeX64 is still a normal editor.

I'm writing faster, but more importantly, I'm thinking more continuously. The interruptions are gone.

If you're on a Mac and you're tired of Googling LaTeX commands, give it a try at tex64.com. It's free to start, no account needed.