# TeXmacs 19 Hacker News commenters recommended TeXmacs and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Free WYSIWYG editor for fast, well-typeset math and structured documents. Critics say it supports only a subset of LaTeX, so LaTeX packages won't work. ## Why people recommend it - Fast math typing (4 comments): "Typing math in TeXmacs felt much quicker than LaTeX, enough so that I was able to keep up with the lecturer's writing on the blackboard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47155184)) "It allows me to type quickly and accurately math and explanation with exquisite typography." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47157524)) "it was excellent for quickly writing math, and building tables" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156220)) - Live WYSIWYG editing without compile cycle (3 comments): "it frees you from the write-compile cycle while being equivalent (maybe in some ways better) from the point of view of the control you have on the document" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45979327)) "Tree-structured documents in a live (WYSIWYG) typesetter with a programmable editor are possible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48545480)) "fully WYSIWYG, no limitation on what it can do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47157547)) - Beautiful typeset output (3 comments): "get proper typesetting, and can copy/paste expressions for simplification by hand" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47199545)) "the program is an incredibly powerful tool for creating beautiful documents" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47272477)) "LaTeX: accomplished typography" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47157649)) - Structured data and CAS integration (3 comments): "It supports handing over beautifully typeset and semantically-structured math to various CAS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49279524)) "For me, also highly intestering is the internal data model and serialization" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47165383)) "you can insert it programmatically into a TeXmacs document in a seamless way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47180026)) ## What people warn about - Misleading name suggests Emacs editor (4 comments): "they gave it a terrible name that strongly implies it's some kind of Emacs TeX editor" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48520779)) "trading on association rather than on substance" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47154514)) "Probably the most misleading app name ever." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47154015)) - Not LaTeX compatible, limited TeX support (3 comments): "this thing is not LaTeX and you won't be able to use any of the LaTeX packages that you need" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275488)) "TeXmacs supports only quite limited subset of what LaTeX and TeX can do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48515285)) "TexMacs is great. However, I use LaTeX regularly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160427)) - Dislike of WYSIWYG over source markup (2 comments): "It seemed like a cool piece of software, but when I later learned LaTeX I discovered I prefer non-WYSIWYG for everything but lecture notes." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47154898)) "I don't like this mode of interaction. No, thanks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546682)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Typst](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typst.md): 205 recommend - [LaTeX](https://hackerapproved.com/p/latex.md): 137 recommend - [TeX](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tex.md): 27 recommend - [Quarto](https://hackerapproved.com/p/quarto.md): 27 recommend - [TeX Live](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tex-live.md): 10 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "TeXmacs", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnu-texmacs/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).