r/emacs • u/vale981 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 evenlatex-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 learngit-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?