Most other online editors they would use (on blogs, Moodle, etc.) have more functionality which makes them expect more and leave them disappointed. A common response I get from such folks is “this is very restrictive” and “I don’t know how to…”, which are fair comments. Having said that, the rich editor is not really that rich. I tend to instinctively recommend Overleaf for colleagues who are allergic to LaTeX. The latter is not intended to be a WYSIWYG editor (ala LEd) but is much more user-friendly with as little markup as possible and a few edit buttons (bold, italic, new section, bullets, etc.). The interface has 2 modes: ‘Source’ for the LaTeX-competent and ‘Rich Text’ for the non. This is clearly designed for people who are new to / skeptical of LaTeX. Some of the above features are not enabled for free accounts, but you can reach them easily as I explain at the end of this post. There’s more I just picked the things that seem most important to me.

Autocompletion of commands and reference names.

Manually-triggered output preview pane, with different compile options and syntax checks.

Syntax highlighting (with about 2 dozen color themes).

Simple keyboard shortcuts that could be changed to Emacs or Vim keybindings.

See online collaborators and what they are editing.

Automated checkpointing with roll-backs of full document history.

Choice of 4 compilers (pdfLaTeX = default, LaTeX, XeLaTeX, LuaLaTeX).

Having said that, this minimal interface has got a lot to help your LaTeXing such as: It is designed for folks comfortable with LaTeX without much bells and whistles.

$free latex editor server$

Let’s start with ShareLaTeX which I tend to use slightly more and more. Also note that I’m only reviewing the free tiers of these services for us pauper academics. If you’re simply after a way of writing and compiling LaTeX documents with your collaborators and you’re not particularly picky, then honestly either would do. Anyway, here’s why.įirst, it’s important to note that both are pretty good at what they do.

I have finally come to a conclusion about which I prefer. For many months I thought there is little to separate them. I have used both Overleaf and ShareLaTeX for multiple collaborative papers over the last 2 years or so.

Free latex editor server