Try Out Overleaf v2

This article was originally published on the ShareLaTeX blog and is reproduced here for archival purposes.

Since ShareLaTeX joined forces with Overleaf last year, our goal has been to create an online editor that outshines both ShareLaTeX and Overleaf. One that is simple to get started with for beginners, has powerful collaboration features for teams, and that seamlessly integrates with the other tools and publishers you work with.

We’ve come a long way since we started last July, and there’s still a lot of work to do, but we’re excited to announce that as of this month you can try out the new Overleaf v2 editor! Just head over to v2.overleaf.com to give it a go. It’s simple to sign in to Overleaf v2 with your Overleaf or ShareLaTeX account, and your existing account or projects won’t be affected. You can also go back to Overleaf or ShareLaTeX at any time.

Launch early and iterate fast

The only way to build a brilliant product is to ask for and listen to your feedback as we go. We want to know what you need from an online editor, and to make sure the features we are releasing are useful and easy to use. We’ve been testing Overleaf v2 with some early users since the start of the year, and it’s helped us make improvements, from our layout sliders to our auto-compile algorithms.

There’s still a lot of work to do on Overleaf v2 before it can completely replace Overleaf and ShareLaTeX, but we think that it’s now awesome enough for people to start using today, so head over to v2.overleaf.com to give it a try! Please do send us any feedback — we’d love to hear your initial thoughts.

Powerful collaboration features

Overleaf v2 offers an impressive collection of new and upgraded collaboration features. The collaborative editing is faster and smoother than in Overleaf v1, and it shows you where your collaborators cursors are as they type. The new track changes mode lets you see exactly what has been changed by your collaborators, and allows you to accept or reject each individual change. You can also comment on ranges of text in your document for precise communication.

Auto-compiling

Auto-compiling is one of the most loved features of Overleaf. We’ve made sure to include and improve on this in Overleaf v2, so ShareLaTeX users can also now just focus on their writing, and let us handle updating the PDF view as needed.

Link sharing

As with auto-compilation, sharing a project by a secure URL is a much loved feature of Overleaf which streamlines collaboration. When implementing this in Overleaf v2, we made an important change based on your feedback: Currently on Overleaf v1, the ability to share by URL is turned on by default, from the moment you create a project, but not all users realized this—they expected to have to explicitly choose to enable it. So in Overleaf v2, this feature is turned off by default, but you can open the Share menu at any time to turn it on!

Reference Search

Overleaf v2 lets you search your bibliography to quickly and easily insert the correct citation. As well as simple auto-complete of your bibliography keys, you can choose to search your bibliography entries by author name, title, publisher or year. This will save you time from wading through your .bib files looking for the right keys, or trying to remember them.

Still in the works

As mentioned, there’s still a lot to do! Here are some of the additional features we’re planning to add before Overleaf v2 is fully launched:

• Rich text editing, so that you don’t need to hand code every single layout option, and can work with collaborators who are less familiar with LaTeX
• Linked files to import bibliographies and styles from other projects, reference managers, or the web.
• Zotero integration, and improvements to the v2 Mendeley integration to support groups.
• Dropbox and Git(Hub) improvements (see this help article for notes on working offline with Overleaf v2)
• API integrations, such as those to publisher manuscript management platforms.

Want to know more?

We’re updating this help article with the latest details on the timeline for the Overleaf v2 testing and launch.

Please do let us know what you think of Overleaf v2! We hope you like it! :)