## WordPress wp-latex plugin without dvipng

I wanted to install the excellent wp-latex plugin for WordPress, which allows the inclusion of LaTeX equations in posts and comments but my ISP did not have dvipng installed, one of its prerequisites, nor some libraries I would need to build my own copy there. I patched the plugin to instead use dvips and convert, which are both part of the standard LaTeX distribution. If anyone in a similar situation needs the plugin and the author doesn’t accept my patch into the official version, you can contact me for it. The patch is only a few lines. [Update: The author has accepted the patch. Until version 1.0 is released you can get the latest svn version.] Most people who have or can get LaTex on their web server should be able to get dvipng installed (and I expect that my ISP will respond to my request to install it), and dvipng is probably a bit faster, but the patch is an alternative for those who need it.

As an example of what wp-latex can do, here is the equation for the protein translation component of my simulation, part of the formula for protein rate of production, not including terms for death and diffusion.

$\sum_{i=1}^{N_{G}} \sum_{l=1}^{N_{P}} \prod_{k=1}^{N} p_{l} g_{i} f^{\prime}_{\mathit{RES}}(R(x))\xi_{ikl}^{(1)}f(l,c_{ik},a_{jk})$

Much thanks to John Hedditch who worked out the equations and translated them into a numerical simulation during a couple of intense days of collaboration we had at his office in Brisbane recently.