Mastodawn

I used Overleaf as a postdoc, but I no longer have an institutional Overleaf account and the free tier is WAY shittier than it was when I was a PhD student. Like, I got ONE compile in. Of a two-page document. And then it told me I was out of compile time and I had to upgrade. Ha. No, thanks.

I used an editor when I was a PhD student, but I absolutely cannot remember which one, and I also remember that whichever one I was using was a pain in the hole.

Of course, a regular text editor and compiling from the command line is always an option, but I like having a dedicated editor. 🤷

Wurzelmann 1d ago

@astronomerritt ad Overleaf: I don't know about your self hosting experience/skills, but it's relatively easy to self host a very decent version of Overleaf. Still not the premium version, but way better than their free tier. If you're interested, I could link you my setup notes I compiled for this.

@wurzelmann That's an absolutely fascinating option, but more work than I'd likely want to get involved with for now! Thanks anyway 😊

Wurzelmann 1d ago

@astronomerritt sure, no problem, just wanted to add it to the mix. Good luck in finding a suitable editor for you!

Ellejay

@wurzelmann @astronomerritt Found those notes recently: https://codeberg.org/wurzelmann/overleaf-without-docker

overleaf-without-docker

Trying to deploy Overleaf without Docker

Codeberg.org

Wurzelmann 1d ago

@doppelgrau

well yes, those are the ones I was talking about, I compiled these. 😬

@astronomerritt I often use the "What You See is What You Mean" editor LyX.
People usually love or hate it.

Elton Carvalho 1d ago

@astronomerritt I remember Kate being a nice LaTeX editor, but I never used it for Production

Canageek 1d ago

@astronomerritt TeXmaker or emacs with AcuTeX

@Canageek Texmaker looks pretty good. I dislike command-line text editors and only use them when I have to, which I am aware makes me some sort of philistine. 😆

Canageek 1d ago

@astronomerritt I mean, you can also just use emac as a GUI application, I only use it as a command line text editor if I'm logged into a different computer from mine.

In fact, for this specific use, it works better as a normal GUI application because it adds a lot of text formatting that's really helpful, I don't usually bother with it unless I'm editing a lot of equations but...

@Canageek I genuinely had no idea that GUI emacs was a thing and I am suddenly quite excited. Thanks for that!

aoanla 1d ago

@astronomerritt @Canageek I mean, gui vim is also a thing (gvim), but gui Emacs comes out of the box, iirc

Blake C. Stacey 22h ago

@Canageek @astronomerritt My approach for the past 22 years has been to write the .tex files in an emacs window and then run them through pdflatex on the command line. Basic, gets the job done.

Canageek 21h ago

@bstacey @astronomerritt I use a button in simple situations, but often do compile command line using latexmk if I'm watching for errors

éric 🚲 🇪🇺

@Canageek @astronomerritt
+1 for Emacs with the AUCTeX mode. Or even possibly using org mode in Emacs.

Joseph Kehoe☑️1d ago

@astronomerritt
kile is good but so is texstudio. I use both depending on which is available.
trying out overleaf.com at the moment

@josephkehoe thanks for the recs! Will check them out. Overleaf is out for me because the free tier is garbage.

Abhijit Menon-Sen 1d ago

@astronomerritt LyX is the only one I've ever used.

@amenonsen I've somehow never used LyX. I should definitely check it out.

Diogo Moreira 1d ago

@astronomerritt I've wrote my entire master thesis using TeXstudio and I guess at some point in the first week you get used to it and the most common shortcuts.

@diogomoreira Sure, but I don't want to take a week to edit my CV 😉 I'll check it out anyway, you're not the only person recommending it.

https://www.texstudio.org

Jens Hannemann 1d ago

@astronomerritt @jmeowmeow TeXstudio

TeXstudio - A LaTeX editor

@JensHannemann Seems to be a popular choice!

Sigma 1d ago

@astronomerritt I'm a huge fan of TeXStudio. It's so easy to use.

@sigmasternchen Seems like everyone loves TeXStudio! Thanks 😊

Sigma 1d ago

@astronomerritt Yeah, it's a great tool. And it has languagetool built-in. ^^

I think I've also heard that some people use just VSCode with a LaTeX plugin. Might be another option.

Nicro 1d ago

@astronomerritt Texmaker is my go to, but I don't think I'm using many of the assist features. Either way, be careful of how much of texlive some of the editors pull in as a dependency, that can eat storage fast. Best to keep the editor separate from your tex distro.

@Nicro Texmaker does seem to have a lot of assist features that I would never use, but it also looks extremely easy to use, which is a bonus, probably.

Thanks for the reminder re: texlive bloat, I'd forgotten all about that. Apparently the full version is 6GB, which... seems absurd.

Folix 1d ago

@astronomerritt the same answer as for all editor related questions: vim (in your case along with https://github.com/lervag/vimtex)

@folix I asked specifically for LaTeX editors for a reason. I don't use command-line text editors unless I have to, and if I wanted to compile on the command line I wouldn't have asked the question :)

Roche Limit 23h ago

@astronomerritt
I used VimLatex when I did a lot of LaTeX, but now it's intermittent I use TeXStudio - I can't be arsed to keep up the Vim config for occasional use.
@folix

Philipp

@astronomerritt I use Enter TeX, the Gnome default. (Used to be LaTeXila, Gnome LaTeX, … somewhat unsteady track record, but the software was always fine, afaik.)

@derfopps Interesting choice. Can I ask about the unsteady track record? Just out of curiosity.

Philipp

@astronomerritt As far as I know, it's been always technically similar, staying close to GTK+ and Gnome libs. The main developer left at some point (about 10 years ago iirc) and then came back, it got part of the Gnome Core Apps, but no longer is, such things.

Caz Mockett 1d ago

@astronomerritt perhaps @tommorris can advise, I think I have heard him chattering about LaTeX in the past 😃

Tom Morris 1d ago

@cazmockett @astronomerritt in the distant past I used LyX.

(Then briefly I ended up writing LaTeX in a text editor. Now I don’t write it at all.)

@tommorris LyX was always the old-school option. I’ve never used it. Might need to try it out just to say I have.

Feuerwehrente 1d ago

@astronomerritt I really like to use the LaTeX Workshop extension of VSCodium (requires an additional installation of something like TeX Live). It's especially great for when one has not just LaTeX documents, but also source code etc.

@firefighterduck I never liked VS Code much, but to be fair, I've never tried VSCodium. I might like it better with less of the Microsoft taint.

Daniel Colquitt 1d ago

@astronomerritt sublime text (https://www.sublimetext.com) + LaTeXTools (https://github.com/SublimeText/LaTeXTools) + Evince

Sublime Text - the sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose

Available on Mac, Windows and Linux

Emily

@astronomerritt I use VS Code with the LaTeX Workshop plugin, but I’m open to new editors as well!
It provides a pretty powerful and flexible environment that should provide all you need for efficient editing. The downside is that it’s VS Code…

For compiling, I use xelatex, because that’s given me the least headaches and good support for UTF-8, fonts and all the modern additions where pdflatex explodes.
I also use latexmk as a “build system”, which is invaluable for big documents and many source files.

dasgrueneblatt 1d ago

@astronomerritt Kate is fine

Simon Waldman 1d ago

@astronomerritt
I like using Eclipse with TeXLipse, but it's been largely unmaintained for a decade or so so it's probably on borrowed time.
If I were setting things up now I'd probably look at VS Code integrations.

Steve Hammond✒️ 📚🔭📹 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿23h ago

@astronomerritt Another rec for LyX. I've used it myself for a fairly complex book. Really smooths the process. That said, it doesn't protect you from 95% of LaTeX being amazing and the last 5% being a complete nightmare.