Cloud-Overleaf

All students and employees of Leibniz University Hannover with an IdM account and the WebSSO/OpenID IT service activated in the IdM Account Manager. Access is granted using the password assigned and the LUH ID as the user name.

External persons cannot currently use Overleaf with their own account. However, collaboration on existing documents is still possible (see Collaboration with external people).

Employees can use Overleaf at the Projektablage to collaborate with external persons.

TeX (pronounced ‘Tech’) is a text typesetting system that is particularly popular in the scientific field. In contrast to the more graphical work in typical word processing programmes, the document in TeX is written as source code and then compiled. This makes it easier to capture mathematical formulations in text form.

LaTeX is a software package that simplifies the use of TeX through macros and is the most widespread method of using TeX today.

Overleaf is an online editor in which several people can work together in real time. The document can be compiled at any time and is then available as a preview on the right-hand side. Version control makes it easy to undo individual changes and clearly shows who originally made them. A chat is integrated for coordination purposes. The documents can be downloaded at any time as PDF or source code and used offline.

A wide range of setting options (compiler, themes, font size, etc.), auto-completion, auto-compilation and, if required, an integrated Vim or Emacs mode are available.

The button for sharing a project is located In the top right-hand corner, within the view of the project.

After clicking the 'Share'-button, the share dialogue opens.

The person's full email address (as entered in the IdM) must be entered under ‘Share with your collarborators’. The access rights include write or read-only access. Click on ‘Share’ to create the link. The respective person then receives a notification e-mail.

If the error message "Can't send invite. Recipient must already have a LUH-Cloud Overleaf account" appears, the person's account does not yet exist. To make a project accessible to someone, the person must have already logged in to Overleaf once via WebSSO.

In the top right-hand corner, inside the project view, you will find the button for sharing the project.

After clicking the 'Share'-button, the share dialogue opens.

It is possible to make the project public. This means that anyone who has the URL of the project can collaborate on TeX documents. The URL contains the hash of the project and is therefore not easy to guess, so the probability of unwanted collaboration is very low.

To make a project public, click on ‘Turn on link sharing’ in the sharing dialogue.

Depending on whether write or read-only access is to be permitted, the corresponding link is passed on.

The rich text editor offers the option of creating a TeX document in the style of ‘What you see is what you get’. For example, headings, mathematical formulae and images are displayed directly, making it easier for less experienced users to get started. The source code can be visualised and edited by clicking on a formula, for example.

The Git integration of Overleaf makes it possible to use an Overleaf project as a remote Git repository. This means you can work on an Overleaf project locally and offline. Local changes to a project can be committed and uploaded to the server in accordance with how Git works.

You can call up the Git URL and the clone command for a project via the ‘Git’ option in the project menu:

After clicking on ‘Git’, the clone command is displayed:

If you have not already done so, you can also create a token in the dialogue. This token serves as a password when accessing the Git repostory.

A total of 10 different tokens can be created. The tokens can be managed via the settings of your Overleaf account.