June 23, 2026
Drag, drop, and academic chaos
Show HN: TikZ Editor – WYSIWYG editor for figures in LaTeX
LaTeX fans are losing it over a drag-and-drop drawing tool that doesn't wreck their files
TLDR: A free tool lets people edit LaTeX diagrams by dragging them around visually while keeping the underlying file neat, which is a huge deal for researchers. The community reaction was mostly ecstatic, with one small but classic fight breaking out over support for a rival writing platform.
A new TikZ Editor just crashed into the nerd corner of the internet with a simple promise: stop suffering while making diagrams. Instead of poking numbers into a text file, users can drag shapes around visually and watch the code update instantly. Even better, commenters are obsessed with one surprisingly emotional detail: it doesn't trash your old formatting. For people who live in giant research papers and fragile diagram code, that is apparently the difference between "nice tool" and "life event."
The applause was immediate and borderline theatrical. One fan called it "really, really great," another said they'd "always wanted something like this," and a third went full world-historic mode by declaring, "All STEM students and researches from the world thank you." Casual! The mood was less product launch, more academic rescue mission. The app also works in a browser, can open full paper files, and even lets a built-in AI helper tweak figures on desktop if you have the right setup, which only added to the "where has this been all my life" energy.
But of course, this is the internet, so the honeymoon lasted about five seconds before the first sideline debate arrived. One commenter swerved away from the celebration to ask the inevitable rival-platform question: what about Typst and cetz? Translation for normal people: even in a love fest, someone will show up to ask why it doesn't support their favorite non-LaTeX world. That tiny comment was the thread's spicy little reminder that in tech, no applause is complete without a format war cameo.
Key Points
- •TikZ Editor is a free, open-source MIT-licensed WYSIWYG editor for creating and editing TikZ figures in LaTeX.
- •The tool updates TikZ source code instantly during visual editing while preserving existing formatting such as line breaks and spaces.
- •It supports common TikZ features including \foreach loops, node anchors, labels, pins, scopes, and editing inside full `.tex` paper files.
- •The app includes a TikZ-focused source editor with syntax highlighting, code folding, hover documentation, error explanations, color picking, and number scrubbing.
- •The desktop version can use OpenAI Codex for GPT-assisted figure editing, while the product is available both on the web and as a desktop app.