Hi all. Recently, I created a LaTeX editor based on the Jetbrains platform, called LaTeX Pro. I also created an RST, AsciiDoc, Typst and MarkDown editor, and when one of my users switched from Typst to LaTeX, I got a bit frustrated with the way how the LaTeX works, and LaTeX Pro is the result.

However, I'm curious to hear what other people are using? Is Overleaf the goto solution, or do people prefer a more local solution? I'm curious to hear what features people really appreciate, so perhaps I can draw some inspiration from that. Thanks!

Update Okay, okay, this blew up quickly!!! Thanks for all the responses, you've given me already quite some tools to look into! Much appreciated to all who left a comment here!!!

Another brief update for my hobby TeX engine series -- I'm about to have a period in which I have less time to work on this project for a spell, and wanted to get in one last update. This time: just like XeTeX and LuaTeX made working natively with OpenType fonts part of the engine level, I'm exploring what it would mean to do the same thing for OpenType math fonts.

In part because I had less time to plan this video out, I feel like my explanation of exactly what I'm doing at the engine level was shaggier than it should have been. To be clearer: XeTeX and LuaTeX already handle low-level OpenType Math table box-building, and expose primitives to teach the engine about unicode characters. However, they leave the heavy lifting of setting everything up to the unicode-math package (instantiating separate font families for text, script, and scriptscript sizes, assigning thousands of codepoints to map standard symbols and Greek letters, dealing with all of Unicode's historical exception tables (looking at you, Planck's constant!) and so on).

In NemaTeX, I've shifted all of that font-orchestration and alphabet-mapping machinery into the c++ code. When an OpenType math font is active, the engine can do things like treating \mathbf, \mathcal, or \mathbb as virtual math alphabets, translating the base characters directly to their target unicode codepoints.

To be honest, I know that for compatibility I will have to revisit some of the specific design decisions I made there. I somehow didn't know this before I was working on this part of my engine, but it turns out that the unicode-math package has a two-tiered semantic system: "symbols" (\symbf, \symit, etc) refer to glyphs in the OpenType math font, and "math" (\mathbf, etc) refer to glyphs in the corresponding text font files.

The way I implemented it for now probably is just a reflection of my old-fashioned mental model of LaTeX, in which by "\mathbf" I meant "\symbf" without knowing that that was the spelling. But that being said, I'm curious how other people think about the semantics here: should \mathbf pull from the math font or the text font?

Hi everyone!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm a bit confused about how to submit my paper.

I wrote my paper using Overleaf and used the Springer Nature template because I want to submit it to one of their journals. The journal's submission website says I need to upload a ZIP file containing the LaTeX source files. It gives the following instructions:

"LaTeX documents with figures and tables compressed into a .zip format. We will compile these into a PDF for peer review."

I'm using a Mac, and when I click Download ZIP on Overleaf, I seem to get a folder containing my .tex file and other project files. However, the journal's submission website doesn't let me upload a .tex file directly. It accepts PDFs, other document formats, and ZIP files.

My questions are:

• Am I supposed to compress the downloaded folder into a ZIP file myself?
• Should the ZIP file contain the entire Overleaf project, including the .tex file, bibliography, figures, and any other necessary files?
• Is there anything specific I need to do to make sure Springer Nature can compile the files correctly?

I'd really appreciate a step-by-step explanation or a tutorial, especially for macOS and Overleaf, as this is my first time submitting a LaTeX paper to a journal.

Thanks so much for your help!

Update: Thanks to everyone who has replied! I realize I should explain what I've built and why I'm trying to reach people in scientific publishing.

I've developed LEC, a native C/C++ TeX engine for live scientific-document editing and publishing.

What I'm looking for is a way to reach the right people at companies like Overleaf, Digital Science, Wiley, Springer Nature, Elsevier, or smaller companies developing scientific publishing technology.

I'm particularly interested in the engineers, software architects, R&D teams, and product developers who work on new authoring and publishing technologies.

I've spent a considerable amount of time building this engine, and I'd like to show it to someone who understands this field, might find it useful, and would be interested in taking a closer look.

I'm just not sure how an independent developer can reach the right people in these companies.

Here's what I've built and why I think it might interest them.

1. Live LaTeX editing at the character level

Imagine editing a LaTeX document directly in its rendered form, almost like Word, except it's the actual TeX engine producing what you see, without generating an intermediate PDF.

You can click inside a complicated equation, fraction, or matrix and edit individual characters directly. Even if something was generated by a macro defined elsewhere, the engine can take you back to the exact source that produced it.

This isn't paragraph-level or line-level synchronization between LaTeX source and a PDF preview. It's character-level correspondence maintained by the engine itself.

TikZ and PGFPlots can also update as you change expressions, almost like working with a graphing calculator.

Under the hood, the engine retains execution state and uses a dependency graph to reuse valid work between edits. It supports parallel processing and keeps the last successful rendered output visible while you're typing incomplete LaTeX.

It executes real LaTeX macros and CTAN packages, and I've built a package manager that searches for and installs packages from TeX Live.

2. LaTeX directly to Markdown, without going through PDF

This is the other major capability, particularly for publishers with large collections of scientific papers and textbooks.

Instead of reconstructing a document from PDF or separately interpreting raw LaTeX commands, LEC executes the original LaTeX, including its macros and packages, and produces structured Markdown from the resulting document.

Supported equations remain editable, references and numbering are retained, and figures are preserved as images.

I've tested the engine on many arXiv articles. A multi-page, two-column scientific paper can become a continuous, reflowable document, with its content arranged for reading on different screen sizes.

That Markdown can then be used to produce HTML or EPUB using existing publishing tools.

3. The engine itself is the product I'm developing

The editor in the video is a basic application I built to demonstrate the engine's capabilities.

My longer-term goal is to make the engine available for integration into other software, whether that's a scientific authoring platform, an IDE, a publishing system, or potentially an ebook reader.

I've also designed it with both open-source and proprietary commercial integration in mind.

Here are two videos showing the actual software:

• Live LaTeX editing: https://youtu.be/_sbWaia7AV8
• LaTeX to Markdown: https://youtu.be/LhMUg7xWD_0

Examples of scientific papers converted directly from LaTeX to Markdown and HTML

I've also published several conversion examples on my website, https://www.linneon.com. These are actual scientific papers processed by LEC, with mathematics, references, figures, and document structure carried into the resulting Markdown.

1. A posteriori error estimation for coarse or distorted meshes

41 source pages · 1,039 mathematical expressions

Read HTML · Download Markdown

2. A Refined Cometary Fluorescence Model for the ν₃ Vibrational Band of Cyanogen

20 source pages · 576 mathematical expressions

Read HTML · Download Markdown

3. Optimal transport distances to characterise electronic excitations

21 source pages · 179 mathematical expressions

Read HTML · Download Markdown

4. A scalable sample-based quantum diagonalization solver for general Pauli-sum Hamiltonians

10 source pages · 247 mathematical expressions

Read HTML · Download Markdown

So, back to why I originally posted here.

I'm trying to find the right people at companies developing scientific authoring and publishing technologies. Not general customer support or sales, but the engineers, R&D teams, or product developers who might be interested in taking a closer look at LEC.

If you work in this area, know someone who does, or have any suggestions on how to reach them, I'd really appreciate hearing from you.

Feel free to DM me or email me at [e@linneon.com](mailto:e@linneon.com).

And if you have technical questions about the engine, I'm happy to discuss those too.

https://minhaskamal.github.io/BibRefinery/

Researchers deserve a better BibTeX editor. After failing to find one I vibe-coded this. Hope, it would be helpful to all!

I know I am missing S and F tiers, but I found those to be too subjective and more argueable as to why they shouldn't be there. I ranked these all based on how they look and how annoyed I am seeing them in a math problem set.

In the latest entry in my hobby TeX engine series, I'm continuing to explore the idea of a "standard library" for TeX. Because TeX is a Turing-complete language, we could implement anything we want via macro-level packages. But perhaps there are things that make more sense if they are implemented directly by the engine.

This video covers a new primitive I added for parsing and evaluating floating-point mathematics. This follows in the footsteps of e-TeX (which added native integer expression parsing), and I spend some time discussing a somewhat different strategy (Pratt parsing) for handling the evaluation. I think it's amazing that people built macro-level floating-point math for TeX, but I also think this is a prime example of something that is much easier (and faster!) to do at the engine level.

As always, happy to hear your thoughts or field questions!

Greetings, LaTeX enthusiasts!

I was recently creating my own resume (CV), and as a typical person in tech/science, I went through the rabbit hole very deep. I learned about Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and how automated screening can indirectly reject candidates so a human recruiter never sees your resume at all. These findings shocked me a bit, so I dug deeper into how to beat this system.

I narrowed the problem down to two factors: 1) poor tailoring to the role and 2) poor machine readability. While AI has made the first easier to address, the second requires a specific approach. It is not surprising that free Canva templates might not parse well; however, using LaTeX alone doesn't guarantee machine readability itself.

After two months of development, I'm happy to introduce Lucid CV, a LuaLaTeX class for creating modern, ATS-friendly resumes (CVs). Featuring a custom back-end, it is designed and tested for compatibility with common PDF parsers and text extractors.

It's main features include:

• Modern, clean design while maintaining machine readability as a design priority.
• PDF/A-2b and tagged PDF. Tagged PDF output (carries its own structure) and conforms to the PDF/A-2b standard, ensuring interoperability across PDF readers and parsers.
• Customizable without touching the class. Colors, margins, column ratio, font sizes, and the spacing between items, entries, and sections can all be configured from the preamble.
• One content file, multiple layouts. The same body can be typeset in one or two columns, and at regular or compressed density, by changing class options only.
• Header with contact fields and photo. Predefined contact fields (e.g., email, LinkedIn) display their full service prefix (e.g., github.com/xGoldy), ensuring good parsability. A photo can be turned on and off.
• Flexible entry system. Resumes are composed of entries supporting stacked or one-line layouts, flush-right dates, and configurable per-entry spacing.
• Extra elements. Predefined skill chips, reference entries, dashed dividers, and an optional Last update timestamp can be added.
• Additional tooling. In addition to Overleaf support, the project includes a local build script and a comprehensive ATS test suite.

Although I put more than 250 hours into its development, I'm releasing the class for free for anyone to use. If you'd like to learn more, refer to the project's GitHub. It can also be accessed using OverLeaf or CTAN. Should you have any questions or feedback, I'll be glad 🙂.

Links:

• GitHub: https://github.com/xGoldy/lucidcv
• OverLeaf: https://www.overleaf.com/project/6abe2d46f439c366b70bd8b4/share#8693a82cbff59e99a5b963b7fb90264d83df4a6cea069125
• CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/lucidcv

I've just released the 1.0.0 version of a package I have been working on for nearly two years now: the RPGTeX package. Designed to provide a core+theme based approach to writing documents for your favourite RPG.

This project was originally inspired (and the code is a fork of) the DND-5e-LaTeX package, which I rewrote from the ground up after I discovered I was maintaining a copy of the D&D version, and a customised scifi version: so I decided to merge them together into a single RPG-engine which was easy to generate an entirely new theme for.

There are two things I am most proud of in this project:

1. The auto-computation of the dnd statblocks allows you to auto-compute things like a monster's to-hit bonuses based on the stat arguments provided to the environment. It makes writing a monster very easy.

2. The 'Cardable environments' - RpgItem, RpgSpell, RpgFeat and RpgStat can all be configured to compile in either a 'text mode', or in a 'card mode', where the text is forced into a playing-card sized minipage, suitable for handing out to players. Getting the card-breaking to work was a labour of love.

The link to the github repo is here: https://github.com/DrFraserGovil/rpgtex, and there is both example documents and an exhaustive set of documentation. I have also got a working version on Overleaf (but free-tier compilation is a bit rough).

I have a couple of features I still want to add (support for Progress Clocks, for one), but this is the cleaned up, polished version of a bit of code I have been using for my own projects for years now. I hope you either enjoy looking at my descent into madness, or find it useful.

AI Usage: 99% of this package was written by hand, by me. There's a full breakdown of AI usage in this project in the documentation but TL;DR, I only started using integrated AI tools in the last week, and Claude Code added only one major functionality (replaced my hacky \write18 call with a nice \sys_get_shell)

I work on SciSpace. Posting this because the usual IEEE failure is the shell, not the writing: journal class instead of conference, a thesis-style contents page, or references that are not numbered in citation order.

This is one file. pdfLaTeX. IEEEtran is already on Overleaf and in TeX Live. Your conference author kit wins on page limit and the copyright line. Do not invent those.

\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}

\usepackage{cite}

\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\title{Paper Title}

\author{%

\IEEEauthorblockN{First Author}

\IEEEauthorblockA{\textit{Department, University}\\

City, Country\\

email@example.com}

}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}

One paragraph, about 150--200 words, unless the call for papers says otherwise. No citations in the abstract.

\end{abstract}

\begin{IEEEkeywords}

keyword one, keyword two, keyword three

\end{IEEEkeywords}

\section{Introduction}

State the contribution in the first page. Cite in order, like this \cite{example}.

\section{Method}

\section{Conclusion}

\begin{thebibliography}{1}

\bibitem{example}

F.~Author, ``Paper title,'' in \emph{Proc. Conference Name}, City, Country, 2026, pp.~1--4.

\end{thebibliography}

\end{document}

Compile from the folder that contains the file:

pdflatex main

pdflatex main

Three things that get a PDF sent back:

1. \documentclass{IEEEtran} with no [conference] option. That is the journal layout.

2. A table of contents, chapters, or an approval page. A conference paper does not have those.

3. Author-year citations. IEEE wants numbered references, in the order they are cited. Three to five keywords, in the IEEEkeywords block above.

Figures have to stay readable at one column width. If the call for papers requires IEEE PDF eXpress, run that after this compiles, not before.

Longer checklist, including what the chair checks before the proceedings build: https://scispace.com/templates/ieee-conference-template-dnxisrdieyni0bn

Official class docs, if you want them instead of my notes: https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates

Hello!

First time posting here, so let me know if you need more context than I'm providing! :–)

I've been using LaTeX since January this year, and I've been absolutely loving it.

One thing that drives me nuts, however, is that titles are arranged relative to the label, and not the other way around (see Image 1). This is especially frustrating given that enumerate lists seem to do exactly what I want, i.e. they arrange the label (right-aligned) relative to the content of the \item (see Image 2), such that the text right of the label is aligned across \items.

I feel like I know my way around the titlesec package by now, yet I still haven't found any of its functionalities to achieve what I want.

I would greatly appreciate it if anyone who's had luck with something like this, would share with me how they got there!

CODE

This is how I've set up \sections in the preamble:

\titleformat{\section}[hang]{\large\bfseries\sffamily}{\thesection}{0.75em}{}[]
\titlespacing{\section}{-1pt}{3ex}{0.5ex}

Here's what you're seeing in Image 1:

\section{this is fun}
\section{this is fun}
\section{this is fun}
\section{this is fun}
\section{this is fun}
\section{this is fun}
\section{this isn't fun anymore}
\section{this isn't fun anymore}
\section{this isn't fun anymore}
\section{this isn't fun anymore}
\section{this isn't fun anymore}
\section{this isn't fun anymore}

And here's what's in Image 2 (you're only seeing the last 7 \items):

\begin{enumerate}
    \item this is fun
    \item this is fun
    \item this is fun
    \item this is fun
    \item this is fun
    \item this is fun
    \item this is fun
    \item this is fun
    \item this is fun
    \item it's still fun
    \item it's still fun
    \item it's still fun
\end{enumerate}

(I compile with XeLaTeX in TeXShop for MacOS.)

If you have experience as a FOSS contributor or maintainer, this is a good chance to help make TeXposit's community edition better.

Hi everyone!

I've been working on a project called Theorem, designed to make it easier to create and export mathematical equations without having to set up an entire LaTeX document just to render a formula.

The idea is simple: write a mathematical expression in LaTeX, preview the rendered equation, and export it for use wherever you need it.

What can you use it for?

• Presentations: Add clean equations to PowerPoint slides, seminars, and lecture materials.
• Research and thesis writing: Prepare mathematical expressions for papers, reports, and scientific illustrations.
• Study notes: Create nicely formatted formula sheets and revision materials for physics and mathematics.
• Teaching and content creation: Use equations in tutorials, educational blogs, and online learning resources.
• Web and graphic design: Export equation graphics for websites, diagrams, and other visual content.

The tool supports multiple export formats, including PNG, WebP, JPG, SVG, and PDF, and is available in both a browser-based version and a desktop version.

I built this because I wanted a convenient way to turn LaTeX expressions into reusable equation graphics for academic and scientific work.

You can check it out here:

https://soumyajit9696.github.io/theorem/

I'd appreciate feedback from people who regularly work with LaTeX or mathematical notation.

What features would you like to see in a tool like this? Are there any common equation-formatting workflows that you find particularly frustrating?

Thanks for checking it out!

Hi all,

First, I know the audience here likes writing LaTeX — so I want to be upfront: this isn’t meant to replace it for people who are already fluent. It’s aimed at the folks around us (students, colleagues) who give up on LaTeX because of the learning curve and fall back to Word.

I’m an engineering student and I built Texifine: a block-based editor where you assemble a document visually and it generates the LaTeX rendering underneath. The goal is lowering the entry barrier without sacrificing the output quality that makes LaTeX worth it.

It’s in open beta right now. Where I’d really value this community’s eye:

• Is the output quality actually up to par, or are there typesetting details that break? You’ll spot things I won’t.
• Where does a visual approach fall short? There are clearly things raw LaTeX does that blocks can’t, and I’d rather hear it straight.
• Writing equations still requires knowing some syntax right now — I’m working on documentation for that. Curious how you’d approach making that approachable.

Full access for everyone during the beta. I’ll drop the link in the comments to keep this from reading like an ad — genuinely here for the feedback.

Thanks for taking a look.

Is there any way of including images as 3d objects/surfaces/textures etc into a 3d asymptote scene?

I really like asymptote and want to use it for computer vision visualization but I could not find any way of integrating images into a 3d scene.

Does anyone have experience in this regard?

Couple hours back I saw myself editing tex document in VSCode without any pdf preview. I wanted an extension that is as simple to use as Overleaf, is very minimal, and can auto-sync with an overleaf project. So I decided to create a small extension for it. Would love for you to try and provide feedback. It is called "TeX Side Preview".

Extension Link: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=HemantBanke.tex-side-preview

GitHub: https://github.com/Hemant-Banke/VSCodeTex

im kinda new to latex so im really just open to anything at this point. the group at my school uses currently uses overleaf to create content but i really want to have it native to the site im building. ive looked around and found mathjax and katex but (with my very helpful ai friend) i created a previewer to see if i could kind of copy paste at least individual sections themselves from the overleaf and it didnt really work well at all. i really dont want to have to have pdfs cuz they seem like they would be a pain but at the same time im looking for something that will make it seem like the latex that is rendered is actually part of the site so rn that kind of means no background so its see through. heres a example question just to give an idea of what im looking to render:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\usepackage{amsmath, amssymb}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,intersections}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
\setlist[enumerate]{itemsep=12pt, topsep=6pt}
\pagestyle{plain}

\begin{document}
\begin{center}
    {\LARGE \textbf{Problems}}
\end{center}
\vspace{0.35cm}
\begin{enumerate}[label=\textbf{Q\arabic*.}]

    \item Find the number of ordered triples of positive integers $(a,b,c)$ satisfying
    \[
    a+b+c=20
    \]
    and
    \[
    ab+bc+ca=96.
    \]

    \item Let $ABCD$ be a rectangle with $AB=10$ and $BC=6$. Point $P$ lies inside the rectangle such that
    \[
    PA=5,\qquad PB=\sqrt{61},\qquad PC=\sqrt{41}.
    \]
    Find the area of $\triangle PCD$.

    \item A positive integer $n$ is chosen uniformly at random from the integers from $1$ to $1000$, inclusive. The probability that $n$ is divisible by exactly one of $6$, $10$, and $15$ is
    \[
    \frac{m}{n}
    \]
    in lowest terms. Find $m+n$.

\end{enumerate}
\end{document}

Need help in resolving: TeXstudio error: Infinite glue shrinkage found in box being split. \end{xltabular}

Currently using, 4.9.8 TeXstudio version, and using this same version on 2 different computers, one gives the same error, when I try to insert a multi-page table in a report, while the other system runs smoothly.

Preamble:

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\usepackage[
a4paper,
left=1.33in,
right=0.94in,
top=1.50in,
textheight=8.5in,
headheight=15pt
]{geometry}
\usepackage{setspace}
\onehalfspacing
\usepackage{xltabular}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage[
backend=biber,
style=numeric,
sorting=none
]{biblatex}
\usepackage{multicol}

Table code(it is being used inside a section, if it helps):

\begin{xltabular}{\textwidth}{
>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}X
>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}X
>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}X
}
\caption{Table caption}
\label{tab:Table label} \\
\toprule
\textbf{Col_1} & \textbf{Col_2} & \textbf{Col_3} \\
\midrule
\endfirsthead

\multicolumn{3}{c}{\tablename\ \thetable{} -- continued from previous page} \\[4pt]
\toprule
\textbf{Col_1} & \textbf{Col_2} & \textbf{Col_3} \\
\midrule
\endhead

\midrule
\multicolumn{3}{r}{Continued on next page} \\
\endfoot

\bottomrule
\endlastfoot

sample_1 & sample_2 & sample_3 \\
\end{xltabular}

I'm not a type designer, nor an AI expert, but I like LaTeX, math, and nice oldstyle typefaces like Junicode, Garamond, and Jenson. For example, I currently use these for math in Obsidian rendered by MathJax.

As I understand it, much of the difficulty in preparing a math font has to do with donkey work about getting the metrics correct. For the full conversion of a text font to a math font, I'm sure there's a lot more work that I'm ignorant of.

Isn't this a ripe area for automation via AI? I dream of a tool into which I could throw a text font and get out a math font (or even, someday, extensions into other parts of Unicode). Even a tool that supplied the math metrics for MathJax would be a big improvement.

Is anyone out there working on anything like this?

Hi. I'm writing my thesis (for context, in italian) and i'm wondering what's the convention for capitalizing the item being referenced (like figure, table, section, chapter, definition, equation...). For istance, is: Figura~\ref{myfigure} or figura~\ref{myfigure}? Thank you in advance.

EDIT: thank you all for the info

Overleaf does not include comments or tracked changes in the zip download. They only exist inside the editor.

So you can use this extension. Open your project, click the icon, press Export. You get every thread with its replies, grouped by file and section, plus the tracked changes, and optionally a spreadsheet and a response letter template. It runs in your own logged-in tab.

Chrome Extension: Overleaf Comments Export (approx. 390 users already)

There's also a desktop application you can use: Overleaf Comments Export - GitHub

Free and open source. If it breaks on your project, feel free to raise a GitHub issue, I will try to fix.

Hi. I'm writing my thesis (for context, in italian) and i'm wondering what's the convention for capitalizing the item being referenced (like figure, table, section, chapter, definition, equation...). For istance, is: Figura~\ref{myfigure} or figura~\ref{myfigure}? Thank you in advance.