Overleaf

Overleaf is a cloud-based collaborative writing and publishing platform centered on LaTeX, the document preparation system widely used in mathematics, computer science, physics, engineering, and other research fields. The name can refer both to the Overleaf software and to the organization operating the principal hosted service at overleaf.com. Its core purpose is to make technical document production easier for teams that need structured typesetting, bibliographies, figures, equations, version control, and simultaneous editing without requiring every contributor to configure a local TeX environment. The service originated in the academic experiences of mathematicians John Hammersley and John Lees-Miller. They began developing the product in 2011 under the name WriteLaTeX through WriteLaTeX Limited. Their work addressed a recurring problem in scientific collaboration: LaTeX is powerful and precise, but conventional workflows based on locally installed tools, emailed source files, and manually managed dependencies can be difficult for distributed research groups. The founders sought to combine LaTeX's publishing capabilities with the accessibility and immediacy of a web application. The company participated in the 2013 Summer programme of the Bethnal Green Ventures accelerator in London. A beta version of Overleaf was publicly launched on 16 January 2014 at the first #FuturePub event at the British Library. Overleaf subsequently received strategic investment from Digital Science and gained recognition through the 2014 Nominet Internet Awards, where it won the Innovative Internet Business category. The platform's visibility also grew through coverage in scientific and technology publications and through relationships with universities, laboratories, conference organizers, and publishers. A major turning point came on 20 July 2017, when Overleaf acquired ShareLaTeX. The transaction brought the two services' communities together, reportedly creating a combined user base of more than two million people at the time. The companies then consolidated their products into Overleaf v2, combining capabilities from both platforms in a single hosted service. This merger became a notable example of user-centered integration of software-as-a-service products; its case study later received the SIGCHI Best Case Study Award at the ACM CHI 2021 conference. Overleaf's business and ecosystem extend beyond a general-purpose online editor. It works with scientific publishers and scholarly organizations to offer journal and conference templates, authoring guidance, and links supporting manuscript submission. IEEE and Springer, including Nature-branded publishing operations, have been cited as examples of publishers that reference or support Overleaf-based submission workflows. In 2017, CERN made the hosted proprietary version available to its members, illustrating the platform's use by large research institutions. The brand's positioning combines specialist publishing infrastructure with collaborative software. It serves individual researchers through free-access functionality while also supporting institutional and professional workflows. Its value proposition is particularly strong where documents contain complex mathematics, citations, cross-references, tables, graphics, and strict journal formatting requirements. Overleaf remains associated primarily with scientific and academic writing, although the underlying collaborative editing model can also support other structured documents. The available reference material does not establish a current corporate headquarters, detailed ownership structure, executive roster, financial performance, or a complete description of present subscription tiers; those fields are therefore left unspecified.

Overleaf was conceived by mathematicians John Hammersley and John Lees-Miller, who drew on their own experiences in academic research and scientific writing. In 2011 they began developing the service through WriteLaTeX Limited, initially using the name WriteLaTeX. The project aimed to address the practical difficulties of collaborative LaTeX work, including local software installation, package management, source-file coordination, and the exchange of document revisions by email. The company was selected for the 2013 Summer accelerator programme run by Bethnal Green Ventures. The programme began on 1 July 2013 and concluded with a Demo Day on 19 September. Overleaf then presented a beta version of its service publicly on 16 January 2014 at the first #FuturePub event at the British Library in London. The product offered browser-based editing and compilation while retaining LaTeX's established role in technical and scientific typesetting. In 2014, Overleaf received strategic investment from Digital Science. During the same year, it won the Innovative Internet Business category at the Nominet Internet Awards. The platform was subsequently discussed by scientific and technology publications, including Nature, Science, opensource.com, and Heise Online. Its growth was supported by adoption among researchers and by relationships with publishers that offered Overleaf templates or referred authors to the service for manuscript preparation and submission. Overleaf's role expanded from an editor into part of the scholarly communication workflow. It provided templates for journals and conferences and supported links to submission processes. IEEE and Springer, including Nature-related publishing operations, are examples identified in the reference material as organizations that mention or support Overleaf-based submission. These integrations helped connect the author's drafting environment with the formatting expectations and administrative processes of academic publishers. On 20 July 2017, Overleaf acquired ShareLaTeX. The combination brought together two major online LaTeX communities, with the merged user base described as exceeding two million users. Rather than maintaining two separate products indefinitely, the developers consolidated their capabilities into Overleaf v2, hosted at overleaf.com. The integration was later examined in a case study on merging SaaS products through a user-centered process. In May 2021, John Lees-Miller, Paulo Reis, and Sven Laqua of Digital Science received the SIGCHI Best Case Study Award at the ACM CHI 2021 conference for that work. Institutional use also became an important part of the platform's history. In 2017, CERN provided the proprietary hosted version of Overleaf to its members, demonstrating the service's suitability for a large international scientific organization. A referenced survey placed Overleaf ahead of Authorea and doDoc in popularity, although the available material does not provide the survey's full methodology or current comparative results. Overleaf is now best understood as a specialized collaboration layer for technical and scholarly publishing. Its hosted editor supports teams that need real-time or shared work on LaTeX documents, while its template and publisher relationships help authors prepare manuscripts for specific venues. The supplied sources do not provide reliable current information about headquarters, legal ownership, executive leadership beyond the founders, revenues, subscription economics, or detailed product releases after the Overleaf v2 integration.

• 2021

  SIGCHI Best Case Study Award

  [1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  The case study on the user-centered merger of Overleaf and ShareLaTeX received the SIGCHI Best Case Study Award at ACM CHI 2021.

• 2017

  ShareLaTeX acquisition and Overleaf v2

  [1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  Overleaf acquired ShareLaTeX and combined the two services into Overleaf v2.

• 2017

  CERN institutional availability

  [1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  CERN made the hosted proprietary version of Overleaf available to its members.

• 2014

  Overleaf beta launch

  [1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  A beta version was launched on 16 January at the first #FuturePub event at the British Library.

• 2014

  Digital Science investment and Nominet award

  [1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  Overleaf received strategic investment from Digital Science and won the Innovative Internet Business award at the Nominet Internet Awards.

• 2013

  Participation in Bethnal Green Ventures accelerator

  [1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  The project was selected for the Summer 2013 Bethnal Green Ventures programme, which ran from July through September.

• 2011

  Development begins as WriteLaTeX

  [1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  John Hammersley and John Lees-Miller began developing the collaborative LaTeX service through WriteLaTeX Limited.

A specialist collaborative writing and publishing platform for LaTeX-based scientific, technical, and academic documents, connecting browser-based teamwork with scholarly publishing workflows.

• Collaborative writing software · 2014

  Overleaf online editor

  The principal Overleaf service is a browser-based collaborative editor for LaTeX documents. It allows authors and teams to write, edit, compile, and organize technical documents in a hosted environment rather than relying solely on locally installed TeX tools. It is designed for content containing mathematical notation, references, figures, tables, and structured sections, making it particularly relevant to scientific and academic users.

• Product generation · 2017

  Overleaf v2

  Overleaf v2 was the consolidated product created after the 2017 acquisition of ShareLaTeX. It brought capabilities and communities from the two online LaTeX services into a single hosted platform at overleaf.com. The integration was later used as the subject of a case study on merging SaaS products through a user-centered process.

• Publishing workflow

  Journal and conference templates

  Overleaf provides templates intended to help authors format manuscripts for particular journals, conferences, and scholarly organizations. These templates connect the writing environment with publication-specific conventions and can reduce the amount of manual formatting required before submission.

• 2017

  Acquisition of ShareLaTeXM&A

  Background

  Overleaf and ShareLaTeX were both established online LaTeX collaboration services with overlapping users and product capabilities.

  Action taken

  Overleaf acquired ShareLaTeX on 20 July 2017 and pursued a unified product rather than continuing two independent hosted services.

  Aftermath

  The combined community was described as exceeding two million users, and the developers released Overleaf v2 with features from both products.

  Source

• 2017

  Expansion of institutional and publisher workflowsStrategy

  Background

  Overleaf had developed beyond a standalone editor through relationships with scientific publishers and research organizations.

  Action taken

  The organization supported journal and conference templates, direct or linked submission workflows, and institutional use such as CERN's provision of the hosted service to its members.

  Aftermath

  Overleaf became more closely integrated with academic manuscript preparation and scholarly publishing processes.

  Source

• 2021

  Overleaf and ShareLaTeX merger case study receives SIGCHI award[1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  Other

  A case study by John Lees-Miller, Paulo Reis, and Sven Laqua about integrating the two SaaS products received the SIGCHI Best Case Study Award at ACM CHI 2021.

• 2017

  Overleaf acquires ShareLaTeX[1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  M&A · Product generation

  Overleaf acquired ShareLaTeX and combined the two communities and products into the next major version of its hosted platform.

• 2017

  CERN provides hosted Overleaf to members[1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  Other

  CERN made the proprietary hosted version of Overleaf available to its members.

• 2014

  Overleaf launches beta service[1]Overleafen.wikipedia.org

  Product launch

  Overleaf launched a beta version at the first #FuturePub event, held at the British Library in London.

1. 1Overleafen.wikipedia.org
2. 2Overleaf official websiteoverleaf.com