TUGboat, Volume 36 (2015), No. 1 25

Online LATEX editors and other resources Pawel Lupkowski Abstract In this paper I will review several LATEX editors and other resources available online. I will focus on the Figure 1: writeLAT X interface range of packages offered and compilation options E available. The main question I aim to answer in this paper is how online LAT X tools change the way we E writeLATEX (together, ‘your stuff’). You retain can work with LATEX. full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. [8] Introduction ShareLaTeX providers also assure us that: The main question I would like to ask in this paper You retain all ownership, copyright and intellec- is how online LATEX tools change the way we may tual property rights to any content uploaded to work with LAT X. To answer this question I will E ShareLaTeX. Your content will only be shared review several LAT X editors and resources available E with other users of your choosing and we will A online. I will focus mainly on writeLTEX[8] and never share your content with third parties with- ShareLaTeX [5], which, in my opinion, are the most out your consent. [5] interesting online editors available. In what follows I will focus only on the function- Using LAT X in online environment can have E A different motivations. First, it is very convenient for ality offered for writeLTEX and ShareLaTeX’s free accounts (they both offer various paid plans suited people working mainly with LATEX. Online solutions offer this environment on virtually any machine with for different users’ needs — more information can be Internet access. Not only editing and compilation is found on the projects’ websites). A possible, but also file storage in the cloud is available The WriteLTEX interface is presented in Figure 1. It has two panels — on the left is an editor and for these services. Also, online LATEX editor makes collaboration easier (file sharing, version control, the on the right a live preview. The compilation is done same package set available for the collaborators). automatically; after each source change the preview is refreshed. You can hide either of the panels. More Online LATEX solutions can also be a great help importantly, you can also turn off the live preview. in teaching LAT X. They can be a fast and easy way E A to start editing and compiling documents without One of the nice features of the writeLTEX editor is that you can turn on emacs or vim mode to use installation of the LATEX environment and an editor — convenient for both teachers and students. the corresponding key-bindings. Unfortunately, spell checking is not available in the free account. 1 writeLATEX and ShareLaTeX Recently a new feature has been added to the editor called Rich Text. This mode allows you to WriteLATEX and ShareLaTeX are mature but still write your document in a semi-WYSIWYG fashion. rapidly developing projects. They are not only LATEX A comparison of default mode and rich text mode editors but also offer a wide range of services in order is presented in Figure2. This new mode is well to make working in an online environment easy and designed and preserves a clear structure of a LAT X effective. Both environments offer: E code. In my opinion it might be useful for beginners, • an editor (with syntax highlighting, line num- especially when editing complicated texts. bering and live preview), Another point I find interesting in this editor is A • an online LTEX compiler, that you do not have to register to use it. You can • file storage, just start writing right away after visiting the web • document templates, page. This opens a wide range of interesting appli- • sharing and collaboration options. cations. One such is to publish your document in First let us take a look at the Privacy and terms writeLATEX in such a way that it might be opened and of service, since we are offered an option of keeping edited by other users. This mechanism is used e.g. our files in the cloud. For writeLAT X, we read that: E by the LATEX template page described in Section3. By using our Services you provide us with in- As for ShareLaTeX, its interface is very similar formation, files, and folders that you submit to to that of writeLATEX (see Figure3). At the start, it First published in BachoTEX 2014 proceedings, pp. 109–112. displays three panels — the leftmost one displays files Reprinted with permission. used in a given project; the middle one is an editor

Online LATEX editors and other resources 26 TUGboat, Volume 36 (2015), No. 1

Table 1: writeLATEX vs. ShareLaTeX (free accounts) writeLATEX ShareLaTeX storage quota 100MB no data tag projects yes yes Dropbox no no compilers pdfLATEX pdfLATEX, LATEX, X LE ATEX, LuaLATEX templates yes yes *.zip upload yes yes file history yes no limited number no no of projects mobile support yes poor edit without yes no registration collaboration unlimited with 1 user only

Figure 2: writeLATEX interface — regular vs rich text mode example

Figure 3: ShareLaTeX interface

and the rightmost is a preview. By default compila- tion is manual; you click “Recompile” to see changes in the preview. As in writeLATEX you can turn on Figure 4: VerbTEX on the Android device emacs or vim editor mode. It is worth stressing that registration is necessary to use ShareLaTeX. Very usefully, ShareLaTeX offers different com- 2 Go mobile pilers to use for your documents (via the Settings The editors presented in the previous section can section). Currently ShareLaTeX supports LATEX, be used on a mobile device (with a reasonably big pdfLATEX, X LE ATEX and LuaLATEX. At present, write- screen). But there is a tool that is designed especially LATEX only supports pdfLATEX, but adding X LE ATEX for mobile devices, namely VerbTEX[7]. VerbTEX is is planned (see [8, Help]). available for all popular mobile platforms, notably Both writeLATEX and ShareLaTeX are intuitive Android, iOS, and Windows 8. and easy to use and explore. Tutorials and help VerbTEX works in two modes: local (storing are also offered. A comparison of these editors in a your files on the mobile device) and cloud mode variety of categories is presented in Table1. (keeping your files in the verbosus.com cloud). Files To conclude this section, it is worth mentioning in local mode can be synchronised with a Dropbox another interesting project: LATEXlab [2]. This editor account. Files are stored as projects. In the free is developed within Google Docs. One of its inter- version of this application you can have at most two esting features is that it allows using a local LATEX documents in one project. VerbTEX allows you to installation as an compiler. create, store and edit your documents on the mobile

Pawel Lupkowski TUGboat, Volume 36 (2015), No. 1 27

Figure 5: Detexify

device. Previously existing files can be uploaded Figure 6: Online table editor and to help in writing new documents, a custom new.tex document template is available. The editor (and other formats, such as HTML, plain text and offers syntax highlighting and line numbering, as Mathematica code). The tool allows you to decide can be noticed in Figure4. Most important, to on the table borders, merge cells, add caption and compile your document you will need an Internet edit text align in cells. The interface is shown in connection. This keeps the application quite small — Figure6. the Android version is only 1.7MB. The default Of course the short list given here is far from compilation output is PDF. being complete, but it represents resources that I find most useful in my everyday work. 3 Other online resources Let’s turn to other online resources useful for work- Summary ing with LATEX. The tool I use the most is certainly The way we work today is heavily influenced by Detexify [1]. The idea behind this tool is to make it the Internet and more and more by mobile devices. easy to find a command for a given symbol listed in Tools and resources described in this paper enable [4]. All you have to do is draw your desired symbol us to work with LATEX according to these new trends. and then wait. You will obtain a list of recognised Document typesetting might be device-independent: symbols with commands. Furthermore, each com- we may easily create, edit and share document using a mand is supplemented with some information about or even a mobile phone. This opens new the package needed to use it. Detexify is presented possibilities for LATEX users, possibilities available in Figure5. already for users of WYSIWYG editors, like Office Detexify enables a fast, efficient and very intu- Online or Google Docs. itive symbol search. The tool is also available for mobile devices running Android or iOS. References Another online resource worth mentioning here [1] Detexify. detexify.kirelabs.org. is the LATEX templates website [3]. The page hosts a [2]L ATEXlab. docs.latexlab.org. A large (and still growing) number of LATEX document [3]L TEX templates website. latextemplates.com. templates grouped in useful categories, such as aca- [4] Scott Pakin. The comprehensive LATEX symbol list. demic journals, articles, books, calendars, conference ctan.org/pkg/comprehensive, 2009. posters, etc. Each template is described in detail [5] ShareLaTeX. www.sharelatex.com. and supplemented with an example. A very nice [6] Table editing online. truben.no//table. [7] VerbT X. verbosus.com. feature is that the templates can be edited online E [8] writeLATEX. www.writelatex.com. using writeLATEX by just a single click on the “Open with writeLaTeX” button, making the templates  Pawe lLupkowski even more useful and easy to use. Institute of Psychology Our list of useful LATEX resources is closed by Dept. of Logic and Cognitive Science an online table editor. I often find it hard to easily Adam Mickiewicz University design a large table. [6] can help in such a situation. Pozna´n,Poland This online tool helps you to design a table in a pawel dot lupkowski (at) gmail dot com WYSIWYG fashion and then export it to LATEX code http://amu.edu.pl/~p_lup/

Online LATEX editors and other resources