Overleaf and ShareLaTeX, online collaborative LaTeX editors, will soon be merging into one platform, utilizing their individual strengths. Both tools emerged on the market around the same time in 2012, seeing incredible growth and promise from users as longterm, useful tools. In January 2017, the UC-Berkeley Library subscribed to both tools in order to provide our researchers and students with pro account features of both tools. Both tools enable users to collaborate with groups and individuals on documents; simplify file directories; provide real-time previews; quickly identify errors; and provide access to excellent training tools and hundreds of templates from publishers and different types of documents, not just articles. If you regularly write documents in LaTeX, consider integrating one of these tools into your workflow. Both of them integrate with citation management software, git or GitHub, and provide revision history. Overleaf and ShareLaTeX contribute to a research workflow environment of transparency and preservation, both of which lend well to sharing and revisiting data and notation by others or your future self.
Individually, ShareLaTeX and Overleaf have focused on developing different strengths.
Overleaf:
- WYSIWYG editor
- publisher relationships for streamlined submission process
- integration with Mendeley (which we also have an institutional subscription to!)
ShareLaTeX
- track changes feature
- robust real-time collaborative editing environment
- syncing to Github (ask about UC-Berkeley’s instance!)
The merger of the two platforms will focus on bringing together the strongest components of each tool. For now, you can continue to create accounts on either platform and continue with your work. The founders of ShareLaTeX and Overleaf would like input from their users through this survey.
In the meantime, please join us at the Kresge Engineering Library to learn more about LaTeX and how to write in ShareLaTeX and Overleaf. We will be holding three workshops at the beginning of fall semester, in the Kresge Engineering Library Training Room:
August 24th, 4:00 – 5:00: Introduction to LaTeX
August 31st, 4:00 – 5:00: Typesetting in Math
September 7th, 4:00 – 5:00: Creating Tables, Figures, and Bibliographies
Please register through this form.
Please let us know if you have any questions about the Overleaf and ShareLaTeX merger, or the upcoming workshops.