What are some good Overleaf (Latex) alternatives?

I'm currently writing a report in using Overleaf. As I'm getting the premium version for free through my Uni, I've had no problems so far. Now I'm working in a place with unstable internet and using Overleaf has become very annoying.

Are there some good FOSS alternatives out there, preferably where I can just upload my Project.zip and continue working offline? I have no need to collaborate with anyone or anything like that.

Currently I'm looking at LyX, but I'd be happy to hear about your experiences with that or other programs.

mbw ,

You can use overleaf for sharing only, and write your document locally.
I am currently writing my thesis using the git integration, using neovim/vimtex/jabref, and then doing git add/commit/push to sync to Overleaf.

t0fr ,
@t0fr@lemmy.ca avatar

You can always self host overleaf yourself

pol ,

I'm writing a thesis using https://typst.app

I was hesitant to use it at the beginning but in the end, it's one of the best choice I made so far.

jeffhykin ,

"Select where you heard about typst"
-> Fediverse

Finally somewhere that actually has Fediverse as an option, this must be a good app.

filister ,

This, I also used to create a CV in typist, after a really frustrating experience with LaTeX and the difference is night and day.

And the best part is that errors are actually understandable, so you can actually fix them

TheHobbyist ,

This is probably not the solution for most, but if you care, overleaf can be selfhosted.

More info here:
https://github.com/overleaf/overleaf

Edit: note->not

IrritableOcelot ,

Just FYI, I've done this, and if you're not super familiar with Docker network permissions it can be more than a bit funky, especially if you're on Windows. I'm sure it's trivial for folks who're used to docker, but getting the right ports configured is a bit of a pain.

Retiring ,
@Retiring@lemmy.ml avatar

Idk when you did it, but with the overleaf toolkit, at least the docker networking seems to be no problem. I had quite some problems with updating though. I run an outdated version at the moment because texlive gets updated faster than overleaf, which produces errors when installing the texlive full package.
Overall, also can’t recommend.

IrritableOcelot ,

Oh I got it running eventually. If you were on Linux, it'd be fine, but since on Windows the docker engine runs inside WSL, the ports exposed to a browser in Windows are not the same as what Overleaf is trying to expose in WSL.

Retiring ,
@Retiring@lemmy.ml avatar

I see, you probably had to change the overleaf config file?
I feel it’s too much work to keep it updated and running, on my Linux server. But the official overleaf is just too slow. It struggles to compile 30 page documents, and i have several that are longer.
How does it run for you on your windows computer, with the local installation? What are the specs of your machine?

IrritableOcelot , (edited )

LaTeX is just fundamentally not that fast, especially when pulling in lots of packages. I'm running it on a server with a i7-12700K and 64 GB of RAM, but I didn't really notice a slowdown when running it on an old laptop, they're both about the same speed as the official overleaf. With longer or more complex documents, I usually split it into multiple files and edit them on their own, then use \include{} to being them into the final file with proper formatting and the right preamble. Of course, thats using a local MikTeX install, so YMMV.

To be honest, I've always wondered why you can't like "pre-compile" a bunch of packages into a binary and include that to speed things up. I'm sure there are good reasons, I just don't know them.

Retiring ,
@Retiring@lemmy.ml avatar

You are correct, LaTeX isn’t very fast in general, but my 8 core ryzen server with 8GB of ram assigned to the vm running overleaf is usually twice as fast as the official overleaf unpaid tier. The specs you listed should produce much better results than the official overleaf. This seems weird to me.

As an example, I just compiled my thesis, which is about 60 pages, lots of references, pictures, and generally a heavy document. On my server it takes about 35 seconds, the official overleaf just times out (pay or we won’t compile your document).

IrritableOcelot ,

Hmmm I guess I haven't really compared them on documents over about 20 pages, and even then it was just a qualitative judgment.

vicvinfroi ,

Before overleaf, most people installed Latex locally (see e.g. texlive on Linux, miktex on Windows, etc), and then used their editor of choice (dozen of options here, ranging from dedicated Latex IDE like textudio, texmaker, etc. to more general editors like emacs, etc). LyX is nice too, essentially it's just a particular IDE (i.e. a nice way to edit a latex file without looking directly at the source file). To collaborate (or just backup), they used a cloud provider (e.g. Dropbox is pretty popular in academia); these days, some ppl use private github repo to work collectively on a paper (but you can do that even
if you are the only one editing the file, of course).

Would one of these options that work for you? or do you specifically need something that does not rely on a local installation?

nightm4re ,

Texmaker is my go-to offline LaTeX editor.
In addition, use JabRef for bibliography management and you'll live happily ever after.

TDCN ,
@TDCN@feddit.dk avatar

Combine with git and you now have a good way of keeping track of changes as well of you have to collaborate with others.

mapleseedfall ,

Geez you really can use git for everything

IrritableOcelot ,

Jabref is so great, but do read the documentation when you start. Its easy to use without reading any of it, but there's so much functionality beyond the basics that I just found out recently, and makes it so much easier to use!

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • kbinchat
  • All magazines
    •