Inconsistancies in math formula display (ipython console)

Problem Description

Hi, Displaying math formula as png in the console provides ‘random’ output. Whereas the same works fine in a jupyter notebook. I’ve already asked sympy (sympy/sympy#20491), but I guess it is a spyder issue as it works in a notebook?

What steps reproduce the problem?

eg (in the spyder IPython console):

import sympy as sp
sp.var(x)
x*x

Ok fine, now:

Switch to pretty print mode (no image)!

Another example (from IPython doc)

from IPython.display import Math
Math(r'F(k) = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} f(x) e^{2\pi i k} dx')
Out[1]: 
<IPython.core.display.Math object>

While in a ‘pure’ notebook:

Versions

Anaconda 3 (updated) spyder 4.1.5

Hope this helps, thanks.

[steff456]

Ok, for getting the expected result you need to:

1. Install Latex in your machine (Miktex in Windows, Texlive in macOS/Linux)
2. Create a new special console for Sympy in the hamburger menu of the IPython console, so Consoles > New special console > New Sympy console

If you don’t want to use the Sympy console, then you need to read the following documentation to make it work, https://docs.sympy.org/latest/modules/interactive.html?highlight=init_printing#sympy.interactive.printing.init_printing

Please let me know if it works for you

[ccordoba12]

No worries @sylvain-bougnoux.

I forgot to mention that next year we plan to add a new Viewer pane to visualize web content directly inside Spyder. Then we’ll be able to display Sympy objects exactly as it’s done in a Jupyter notebook.