Type a LaTeX equation on the canvas

This lesson teaches you the Math tool — the fx icon in the toolbar. You’ll type a LaTeX expression, watch a live KaTeX preview render under your cursor, recolor and resize the result, and export it as SVG or PNG. The exported file can drop straight into a paper figure, a slide, a Notion page, or a blog post.

The Math tool is part of drawtonomy’s infinite whiteboard, so the same canvas can also hold lanes, vehicles, and pedestrians — handy when an equation needs to live next to the diagram it explains. But you don’t have to use any of that: the Math tool also works on a blank canvas as a standalone equation editor.

1. Pick the Math tool

Open drawtonomy.com. In the bottom toolbar, click the fx icon — it sits between the Text (T) and Freehand tools:

$The Math tool (fx) is the active button in the bottom toolbar$

Tip: if you’d rather use the keyboard, press / — that’s the Notion-style shortcut for the Math tool.

2. Click where the equation should go

Click anywhere on the canvas. drawtonomy opens an inline editor in place. The top half is a plain-text LaTeX input, the bottom half is the live KaTeX preview. A faint placeholder shows the quadratic formula as an example.

$Empty Math editor — top half is a textarea for LaTeX source, bottom half is the live KaTeX preview, with a placeholder example$

The keyboard hints at the bottom — Del: delete · Arrows: move · Esc: deselect — show what you can do while the editor is open.

3. Type some LaTeX

Type a real expression. Try the classic:

E = mc^2

As you type, the bottom pane re-renders in real time. There’s no “render” button — every keystroke updates the preview:

$Math editor showing E = mc^2 in the input pane with the corresponding KaTeX rendering below$

Now try something bigger. Clear the input and type the quadratic formula:

x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}

\frac, \sqrt, \pm, and ^ all render exactly as they would in a paper:

$Math editor showing the quadratic formula with fraction, square root, and ± rendered in the preview$

The Math tool supports the full KaTeX vocabulary, plus the mhchem extension for chemistry — see the Math reference for the catalog.

4. Confirm: press Esc

Press Esc (or click outside the editor) to finish editing. The textarea disappears and only the rendered equation stays on the canvas, sized to fit:

$The confirmed equation on the canvas — only the rendered formula is shown, with a selection box around it$

The blue outline is just the selection box. Click somewhere empty to deselect.

To re-edit, double-click the equation. The editor reopens with the original LaTeX source — drawtonomy stores the source, not just the rendered image, so every equation stays editable forever.

5. Recolor and resize

With the equation selected, look at the Math (LaTeX) panel in the top-right corner:

Color — click any swatch to recolor (paper-safe black, greys, red/orange/yellow/green/blue/purple). For brand-specific shades, click More… for the full palette.
Size — drag the slider from 8 px (footnote-size) to 200 px (poster headline). The whole equation rescales proportionally.

Set the color to red and the size to 60 px:

$Same equation in red at 60 px, with the Math (LaTeX) panel showing the selected red swatch and the 60 px size slider$

6. Export

When the equation looks right, export it. Menu → Export:

Format	Best for
SVG	LaTeX (`\includegraphics`), Notion, websites, slides. Vector, scales cleanly.
PNG	Anywhere SVG is unsupported (Word, some chat apps).
PDF	LaTeX builds that require PDF figures. Text is path-converted, so no font dependencies.
EPS	Older LaTeX toolchains (`latex` + `dvips`). Also path-converted.
.drawtonomy.svg	drawtonomy’s native format. A regular SVG you can re-open in drawtonomy to edit the LaTeX source.

For day-to-day use, SVG and PNG cover almost everything. For LaTeX papers, PDF is the most predictable.

What else the Math tool can do

A short tour of the rest:

Chemistry (mhchem) — \ce{2 H2 + O2 -> 2 H2O} renders as a proper reaction arrow.

$mhchem chemistry equation in the live preview$
Multi-line systems with numbered equations — wrap blocks in \begin{align} ... \end{align} for paper-style equation numbers. Equation bodies and tags (1)(2)(3) are guaranteed not to overlap, even at large sizes.

$Maxwell's equations rendered as an align environment with equation numbers (1)–(4)$
Long equations — the textarea wraps and the preview pane scrolls, so even half-page derivations stay editable.
Cmd+A then Delete — select every shape on the canvas (math included) and clear it.
Drag the input box — while editing, click-and-drag (5 px threshold) to nudge the editor without losing your place.
Undo / Redo — Cmd+Z / Cmd+Shift+Z. Color and size changes are individual undo steps; dragging the size slider collapses into one step.