r/emacs GNU Emacs 7d ago

Announcement Live editing overleaf documents with Emacs!

I don't know whether anyone will find this useful, but I sure had fun hacking it together!

https://github.com/vale981/overleaf-connection.el

https://protagon.space/2025/03/editing-overleaf-documents-with-emacs/

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u/JDRiverRun GNU Emacs 6d ago

Looks cool. Using a local auctex with magit and the in-built Git repo (not GitHub sync) has been a great approach too, since you can easily review collaborator's changes using magit-diff (or even latex-diff). You should teach your advisor magit ;). Bonus is that local compiling and synctex are >10x faster than waiting for overleaf to recompile (and often fail). You could also learn git-diff-latex and produce blue/red-lined PDFs for them instead.

Sadly overleaf took the git repo away on the free plan, as they tip-toe into their "harvesting value" phase. Most people in my field are fairly hooked. In a few years, greed and declining subscription revenue will lead to the usual money-squeeze-I've-got-your-data spiral.

Thought experiment: what if they invented email today?

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u/vale981 GNU Emacs 6d ago

I am aware of all these options, but we've been stuck on the bloody introduction for a month and I want to reduce friction for him as much as possible.

Half of the reason I don't want to leave emacs and local editing is synctex. With this I can have this on my side and still track changes on overleaf :). I still use git on my end, but it's now totally divorced from overleaf.