
Online LaTex editor - dn2k
https://www.sharelatex.com
======
po
I looked into using LaTeX in an online service once but my understanding was
that LaTeX is difficult to serve as a service because there are several
commands which allow arbitrary code execution. Is this whitelisting some of
the syntax? How are they doing that?

(btw, if it turns out they aren't please don't comment here about it but
instead report it to them at
[https://www.sharelatex.com/security](https://www.sharelatex.com/security) )

~~~
emillon
It's always possible to sandbox the processes. In that sense, it's not very
different from the various
[http://try.$PROGRAMMINGLANGUAGE.org](http://try.$PROGRAMMINGLANGUAGE.org).
For most of the sandboxing techniques, the performance can be however
problematic.

What's peculiar about latex is that its compilation model is ridiculously
inefficient. There's no separate compilation, so you have to re-run the whole
compilation at the tiniest change. Also, there's a lot of I/O involved, and a
several passes are needed. For example, to display the table of contents, it
is necessary to append to a temporary file a list of commands (emitted by
\section{} etc) which will be interpreted, in a following pass (it is
necessary to manually re-run the compiler) by \tableofcontents.

~~~
weavie
Has anyone ever tried to refactor and sort Latex out? As such a widely used
and important app, it really surprises me that there would be so many problems
left in the code base. It is open source after all.

~~~
reycharles
> [...] since Knuth highly values the reproducibility of the output of all
> versions of TeX, any changed version must not be called TEX, TeX, or
> anything confusingly similar.

I have heard that to be the reason that some don't want to "fix" TeX/LaTeX.

Source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX#License](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX#License)

LaTeX also has a similar clause (or whatever you call it):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX_Project_Public_License#Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX_Project_Public_License#Unique_features_of_the_license)

~~~
dbaupp
To be clear, it is allowed to be called a TeX if it passes a testsuite:

> To enforce this rule, any implementation of the system must pass a test
> suite called the TRIP test[39] before being allowed to be called TeX

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networked
This is a new product from the people who made ScribTeX
([http://www.scribtex.com/](http://www.scribtex.com/)).

ScribTeX helped me a lot a few years back when I had a conference paper due in
a couple of days and only an old PowerPC machine at my disposal at home that
had trouble running MacTeX (for reasons I had no time to fix). I ended up
writing most of it in the browser. Then the killer feature of ScribTeX for me
was that it didn't require registration; you could use it from anywhere right
away if you had your TeX files with you on a flash drive. It wasn't that
registering or logging in was hard, mind you, but not having to do it
completely bypassed the mental barrier of entering your password in a
potentially unsafe environment like a malware-infested university computer
lab. Later you would be at a safer computer (e.g., your own), log in to
ScribTeX and upload your document to it as an off-site backup.

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jessriedel
People in this thread might also be interested in the following. GmailTeX
allows you to see LaTeX in your Gmail and GChat. Works in real-time, but
browser plug-in required.

[http://alexeev.org/gmailtex.html](http://alexeev.org/gmailtex.html)

Socrates is a website for writing instant Markdown and LaTeXing in the
browser. It's hyperlink-shareable, no plugin required.

[http://socrates.io/](http://socrates.io/)

~~~
jbackus
I want to love socrates.io but the fact that it doesn't support Markdown
tables is an issue:

Socrates.IO Table: [http://socrates.io/#YtM088D](http://socrates.io/#YtM088D)

Working Example:
[http://bit.ly/JbtMarkdownTable](http://bit.ly/JbtMarkdownTable)

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swah
My experience is that LaTex is too hard/strange for most people (even
electrical engineers, so its not about IQ...), and there isn't a better
alternative to MS Word for writing big product manuals.

(Also, while having some experience with the system, I do notice that I have a
hard time achieving flow while writing LaTex. There are hundreds of WTFs).

~~~
klancaster1957
I've started doing my academic writing in MultiMarkdown (MMD) using Scrivener.
It generates LaTex (or PDFs via LaTex) and for me is even easier than Lyx.
When needed, you just embed raw LaTex in the doc as <!--xxx-> comments or just
do the final polishing in your usual LaTex editor.

~~~
swah
I almost forced the team to choose Markdown, and then had to change my advice
and say "Let's go with LaTex" because there are so many features MS Word users
want to use... I don't remember exactly the one that prompted the switch -
maybe footnotes, tables or referencing.

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siddhartpai
There is another site called
[http://www.writelatex.com](http://www.writelatex.com)

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aortega
I'm surely getting old, but I believe online editing of text documents is
insane. I would forget about writing anything slightly more important than a
pie recipe with this.

~~~
VikingCoder
Why insane? I mean, you're welcome to your opinion, but you haven't presented
any arguments for your position.

I find it incredibly useful. The alternative is normally using Microsoft Word,
and emailing each other versions of the document, that need to be merged by
hand.

~~~
aortega
I'm worried about privacy. Even scientific papers need to have reasonable
privacy before publication, that you do not have by using somebody else's
hosting.

More useful would be using latex and some form of source-control like git or
svn hosted by you or your organization.

~~~
VikingCoder
The odds that you or your organization will do a better job of Dev Ops than
Google are effectively zero. You'll leave some port open that you shouldn't,
have an easily guessed password on a router, forget to update a kernel, you
won't set up two-factor authentication...

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alpeb
I swear by StackEdit one, which is an online editor for markdown supporting
LaTex math expressions:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stackedit/iiooodel...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stackedit/iiooodelglhkcpgbajoejffhijaclcdg)

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mkohlmyr
Used sharelatex for my third year project report at university. ~60 pages
rendered quickly and flawlessly. Such a great experience using it compared to
various desktop software and command line

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mjcohen
Going the other way, if you want to enter the LaTeX variant called MathJax
locally (PC and Mac), which is used on math.stackexchange.com (among other
other places), try [http://www.inkcode.net/qute](http://www.inkcode.net/qute).
I find this very handy for short to moderate length math.

In my weirdness, I like to use qute in split-screen mode, and work out the
math as I enter it, never writing anything down. I then make corrections,
modify things, move lines around, all in qute. I have developed some
techniques for having correct MathJax syntax at almost all times, which I find
necessary since qute does not show the result of an incorrect expression.

I find qute very useful for formatting math. Since it is all offline, no
connection is needed. After the formatting is correct, I can then push it to
the clipboard and paste it into whatever I want (usually
math.stackexchange.com).

I recommend qute highly. Again, it is for Windows and Mac OS, not Linux
(unfortunately).

~~~
X4
@mjcohen weird, I use qute on Linux (Gentoo), there's even an ebuild for it.
However it's not hard to built it yourself on linux, actually dead easy. I
also use pandoc writing Markdown and compiling to latex → pdf

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glesica
There's something vaguely "scammy" to be about the university logos being
featured so prominently on the front page. My first thought was that it was
being developed by a consortium of schools, but apparently it is considered
good enough if one or more students at the institution use the product...

~~~
beck5
co-founder here. We do require that the university is paying for a licence
before we show their logo. Also most of the time we get asked to add their
logos there.

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leoedin
I used Scribtex (a previous product developed by at least some of the people
behind sharelatex) for 2 years during university with a lot of success.
Compared to setting up a latex environment on every PC I used it was a dream.
I found the developer quick to respond to bug reports and issues. Recommended!

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rob22
It is a good editor.you can create you own resume through the sharelatex....

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benjamta
We use LaTeX a lot for all kinds of documentation. I've used sharelatex.com on
and off for a while now.

I think they'll be onto a winner when they've got their up coming Git access
feature sorted out.

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X4
How you can speedup LaTeX compilation speeds by a factor of 2x or 3x.

%&Thesis -jobname="Thesis"

% ^^This needs to be the 1st line of your Thesis.tex^^

%% Enable Binary Preamble Cache

%% Doc:
[http://www.ctan.org/pkg/mylatexformat](http://www.ctan.org/pkg/mylatexformat)

%% Usage: pdflatex -ini -synctex=1 -shell-escape -jobname="Thesis" "&pdflatex"
mylatexformat.ltx Thesis.tex

\csname endofdump\endcsname

What follows here is the part that changes, ie. your chapters. All preceding
"endofdump" will be compiled into a cache file.

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tzury
The templates section is nevertheless useful
[https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/](https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/)

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lutusp
Since we're on the subject, here's my online LaTex editor:

[http://arachnoid.com/latex/](http://arachnoid.com/latex/)

~~~
userulluipeste
You should promote more this solution of yours. Big thumb up!

~~~
lutusp
Thanks!

