Sharing your work with others

One of the main features in Overleaf is to allow teams to edit documents simultaneously and interact in real time. This article explains how to add collaborators to your project, and also how to share a project publicly.

Adding collaborators to your project

After opening your project, move your cursor to the upper right corner of the page and click the Share icon .

Enter your collaborator's email address in the input box that pops up. If your collaborator already has an account on Overleaf, this should be the email address they use to login to Overleaf. Right below the text box, you will see a drop-down menu where you can set the permissions the new collaborator will have: Can Edit or Read Only. Then click the button Share.

After adding a new collaborator, you will see the corresponding email in the list. You can remove a collaborator from this project by clicking the x.

Once you've added a collaborator to your project, said project will show up in your collaborator's Projects page, and the name of the owner is also displayed. Notice that the projects you own have "You" in the OWNER column.

Now your collaborator can start editing the document. Here, two different users are editing the same document. We the owner's screen, and the owner's cursor is shown in black. The orange icon with letter A (the first letter of the username a.collaborator) shows that the collaborator is also editing. Their cursor is shown in orange

Overleaf provides the following features: Built-in chat with LaTeX mark up enabled. You can talk to your colleagues and send mathematical formulae to them. Instantaneous synchronization: changes appear immediately on all collaborators' screens. Cursor tracking. You can see exactly what your collaborator is typing at any moment.

Premium features such as Track Changes are available to all collaborators in a project, once they are enabled on the owner's account. Your colleagues don't need their own subscriptions to take advantage of the full power of Overleaf when they join your projects.

Link sharing

There's also the possibility of sharing your project via a direct URL:

Sharing by link can be enabled in the Share dialogue. In the dialogue box that will appear, click Turn on link sharing, in the upper right corner. Two links will be shown, one which will give access to the project to edit, and another which will give access to read the project only.

For each link-shared document, Overleaf creates a unique token used only for the link to that document. It is almost impossible to guess the token, and hence the link to your document is known only to you. Please note however that if you publish the link to your document on a website or somewhere public, anybody can use the link and the website where your link is posted might even be included in search engines. By default, new projects created in Overleaf v2 have link-sharing turned off, and cannot be accessed by URL unless it is turned on via the Share menu.

Once link-sharing is turned on, anyone can read a project with a read-only link, and anyone with an Overleaf account can join a project with a can-edit link. Link sharing can be turned off at any point by clicking Turn off link sharing. The links will no longer provide access to the project, and anyone who joined the project by a sharing link will no longer be able to view or edit it.

Quick Guides

• Adding collaborators to your project. Within your project, click the Share icon . In the dialogue box that appears, enter your collaborator's email, and in the drop-down menu right below the email input box select the privileges your collaborator will have. Finally click Share.

• Sharing a project via link. Within your project, click the Share icon , then click Turn on link sharing. Use the link with the appropriate privileges to share your project publicly or locally. Please note that if you publish the link to your document on a website or somewhere public, anybody can use the link and the website where your link is posted might even be included in search engines. By default, new projects created in Overleaf v2 have link-sharing turned off, and cannot be accessed by URL unless it is turned on via the Share menu.