Overleaf: An open-source online real-time collaborative LaTeX editor

I've known about Overleaf for almost as long as I've used LaTeX and until about two years ago, I didn't really understand the point of it; it's not like LaTeX is hard to install or anything, what's the advantage of a web service?

It wasn't until I started doing my PhD work where I realized the Overleaf is useful, because the collaborative tools are extremely handy. LaTeX is very popular in the academic world, and Overleaf allows me to easily work on papers with my advisors (who live in a different continent). It's been great.

I do wish they'd add Pandoc support; LaTeX is cool but I find Markdown considerably more pleasant about 95% of the time, so it'd be great if they could let us use that, though I realize this is probably easier said than done.

I also used Overleaf (and sharelatex before it) for most of my PhD and had no idea it was open source. That's awesome!

I randomly logged in to Overleaf the other day to make something quick in latex, and discovered that my dissertation would no longer compile. Since I'd graduated, I no longer had access to my school's account, and dissertations are so long they time out the build on the free plan.

That it's open source makes me feel better about ever being able to reproduce a build someday if I needed to. (As I write this, I realize I never will. But the it's the feeling that counts!)

Overleaf's documentation is great for learning LaTeX, but I'd never realized the product itself was free software licensed under AGPLv3, so I thought this was worth posting!

I started using LaTeX with Overleaf in college, and it quickly became a game-changer for me. From meticulously crafting lab reports to designing a Beamer slideshow for my senior capstone project, I spent countless hours on Overleaf, creating documents that I was genuinely proud of. The intuitive interface made the entire process not only efficient but also enjoyable. While I primarily use it for my CV now, I still appreciate the power and elegance of Overleaf every time I need to update my resume.

I used to run LaTeX on my 3 machines, switching between them based on compute/portability of the machine, and used a git repo for syncing. So it doesn't give me something novel; but the convenience of overleaf has been amazing. Once you get used to the "write and forget" model, it's hard to go back (but still doable).

It especially shines when you have to collaborate. The convenience of small features also add up, such as being able to leave comments for your collaborators, clicking on the LaTeX document to have the PDF viewer scroll to the corresponding location, and vice-versa (doesn't work exactly the same way, but close), having a fast compile mode that keeps recompiling as you make changes (good for editing, distracting for writing, but ymmv), being able to click on the toc that is generated by overleaf in a side panel.

Maybe other tools do some of these things, but having all of them in place is nice.

Is the publication of Overleaf as open source something new? Or is there some reason that the github page for Overleaf is interesting?

A lot of our students use Overleaf, I’ve never seen the point; especially now that most of their thesis documents no longer compile on the free tier.

I suggested one my students simply install LaTeX and he went down some Docker rabbit hole a fellow class mate sent him. Students do love to over complicate things.

For my thesis I'm leveraging Overleaf's Lua compilation to automagically input all tex files in a given folder. It organizes them into chapters/sections/etc matching the folder hierarchy, sorting by leading indices in the folders' or files' name (eg "35 Topology.tex"). This allows me to split/collapse/reorder sections on a whim, keeping the table of contents in sync with the filesystem. I find it particularly useful as I'm developing a complex framework with yet unclear scope and internal logic. Btw, it supports commands (using ø) in the filesystem to write special characters in the titles.

If there's any interest I would like to share it, if only for the "import all files in folder" thing. But how should I go about sharing it? A Github repo? Or somewhere inside Overleaf?

Looking at the PR history, it's interesting how few PRs are being merged per year.

Of the ones that are they are very short, and typically buxfixes or changes to infrastructure rather than any new features.

I think I count 4 prs merged, with less than 20 lines of code altered, since 2022, and even going back until the beginning of the 2014 commit history, it's hard to find a PR that's altering core functionality.

https://github.com/overleaf/overleaf/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Ame...

2024

+1 -1 A user should be created and a mail with an activation URL should be sent. #1208

+6 -6 Fix 502 errors due to IPv6 #1175

+1 -1 Make the number of max entities per project configurable #1108

2023

+6 -0 added SIGKILL timeouts for docker and phusion_image #1090

I did a remote calc class and nerd sniped myself into learning latex via using overleaf to do homework instead of taking photos of handwritten stuff. 10/10, would self nerdsnipe again.

I started writing my resume in LaTeX years ago. There are a couple templates on Overleaf that are very similar, there seems to be a convergence on the standard "engineering resume".

I made https://resumai.co/convert to allow others to use the template. It works fairly well with most inputs. It's a free tool!

Overleaf is awesome. Honestly I thought that syncing with git would solve any problem with collaboration, like with coding. I was wrong. Overlead collaboration feature works so well. And the compilation is fast too.

I never know they have open source though. I seriously did a google search "overleaf alternative self host" last month and didn't realize this.

Wrote my dissertation in grad school using Overleaf. I’d their UI was more refined than ShareLatex. This was back in 2015-16

It’s interesting to see that they are still around. I remember in one of my tickets, one of the front desk ticket personnel had a PhD herself and was very quick to narrow down the code within SVG file causing rendering issues!

I use LyX a lot and found it very pleasant to type latex without having to remember all Latex commands. It's especially good when typing formulas (I have to remember shortcuts though, but it's much easier).

https://www.lyx.org/

Been using this for over a decade, back when it was called sharelatex. Always liked it for the free cloud storage, nowadays mostly just use it when I need to update my resume.

IMO basic Git + your text editor of choice is much better for academic collaboration. I use Vim for text editing and don't want to be forced into some web editing tool. Also, when I review student writing I want them to actually look at the edits I make and understand the reasoning behind them. Overleaf makes that harder. I know there is Git integration but last time I checked it was kind of clanky and also required the paid version.

I came by the parent company which then said to transfer to Overleaf. Mainly I use it for building and maintaining my resume (which has done wonders).

Very good tool for learning LaTeX, and has some tutorials as well.

Unfortunately, in my experience it does not work as well with Git as they advertise.

> Enterprise

> It also includes more features for security (SSO with LDAP or SAML), administration and collaboration (e.g. tracked changes).

https://sso.tax/

I could swear there was a document producing product way back in the day (i.e. late 80s, early 90s) that was called Overleaf.

It may have been a “workstation” (i.e. Sun or similar) product vs a Mac/PC product.

Is anyone self-hosting this on FreeBSD? Would you share how you set it up? I tried to understand how the docker setup works, but found it to convoluted to replicate on FreeBSD.

There are a couple nice features about Overleaf, like collaborative editing, fairly quick turnaround rebuilding, and being able to double-click to jump back and forth between the PDF and the source. But being forced to edit text in a their crappy web interface just frankly sucks. It's like throwing away half my skillset. It'd be so much better to go the other way and add collaborative features to existing editors than to reinvent the wheel in a crappy way.

Is there a latex editor web based that has proper git support ?

Fun fact: I got my current job in part thanks to overleaf. I used it to write down my CV. It's so much more useful than Ms Word or Google Docs.

The compilation is slow.

How difficult is it to self host and maintain overleaf docker containers with docker compose? Less than 10 users.

Are there any in-browser WASM implementations of *TeX?

How does the hosted version compare to Deepnote?

Didn’t they buy their open source competitor, Sharelatex, adopted the code only to cripple the free functionality like git support behind a paywall? I may be wrong but I think they were proprietary before the acquisition.

It's great!

Overleaf is an example of academics' Stockholm syndrome with respect to LaTeX. It's a not very good web-based text editor with none of the basic features you'd expect from your text editor. Think Notepad, but online. But these guys use LaTeX... they're not discriminating consumers. So then you get locked into it by your colleagues who have never used a decent text editor or IDE, and never thought "hmm, I wonder if it should take less than half an hour of fiddling with parameters to build a decent-looking table".