Use Authorea for technical writingAuthorea is an online collaborative document editor used by scientists. It can also be used for writing technical documents. In fact, the feature set is built for research. This makes Authorea perfect for writing lengthy and complex technical documents of any kind. Some of the most important tools for technical writing are as follows:Mathematical equations, chemical formulae, full LaTeX support

Writing math on the web can be difficult -- not on Authorea!Writing equations online can be very painful. While there are many options out there for writing simple math equations, none of them provides as many options as Authorea.How Authorea helps you write mathIn Authorea, you have a few different choices for writing math. You can use the built-in Equation Editor (\ref{940296}), or the built-in LaTeX Editor (\ref{896173}). The Equation Editor has two ways to write equations: using the Live Editor and using the TeX source.These options are covered in detail below.Equation Editor

What does it take to master article writing?

Online collaboration is a requirement for modern scientific research, but web-based tools are lagging other industriesTo John Sexton, the 15th president of New York University, Science is Now a Vast Global Enterprise -- one that requires substantial international cooperation and modern tools to accomplish this cooperation. The internet age has brought collaborative advancements to many technical fields -- but the tools to write research have been puzzlingly left behind.As we questioned in an essay in Scientific American last year:How come the internet age has yet to deliver a collaborative writing and publishing tool for research?With research papers gaining more coauthors each year, it's important to have tools that support collaborative technical writing in an environment that is native to the web.Is research becoming more collaborative?According to The Economist, the answer is a firm yes. 

What kind of apps are available for reading and writing research articles?Scientists, researchers, and scholars now have available apps that make reading and writing articles easier than its ever been before. Many such apps have made their way into other fields and industries and now the same are available to the scientific community.

There are plenty of equation writers out there -- which is best?Writing equations online can be very painful. Although there exist online communities working to define standards and best practices, for many researchers, scientists, and students it's not clear what is the best way to write math equations.Choosing an equation writer for mathIf you're writing in Authorea, you have access to an Equation Editor (\ref{940296}) and a LaTeX Editor (\ref{896173}) and can use either to write equations. The Equation Editor has two ways to write equations: using the Live Editor and using the TeX source.Equation Editor

Are you comparing Mendeley to other reference managers?Choosing the right reference manager for your scholarly documents is very important. Mendeley is a modern reference and PDF management system. Authorea is a word processor with an integrated reference management system. Authorea's reference management system is seamlessly integrate inside the word processor so that you don't even have to worry about managing references anymore. In this article, we list a few key comparison points that show how Mendeley and Authorea are different.

Deciding between ShareLaTeX and Overleaf? Choosing the right editor for your LaTeX manuscript is not easy. Here are some key comparison points that showcase how Authorea is different from both. 

Introduction to online markdown editorsOnline Markdown editors are increasing in popularity along with Markdown itself. Since 2004, Markdown has been increasing in use as a more functional and easier-to-write version of rich-text formatting. Markdown is popular across the web and online Markdown editors will continue to proliferate as long as there is interest in simple formatting for text on the web.Advantages of online markdown editorsMarkdown makes it really easy to apply formatting to text. Markdown covers the capabilities of HTML without the need for writing HTML tags, which can be a little annoying. As an example, to make an H1 heading in Markdown, you can simply write# some textand the markdown will render like this:

Introduction to online LaTeX editorsOnline LaTeX editors have only come around recently -- but the advantages are clear if what's needed is a pure cloud-based LaTeX compiler. There are several interchangeable options for online LaTeX editors which provide comprehensive LaTeX package support online.

Introduction to online markdownMarkdown is a markup language with a simple text formatting syntax. It is designed to provide basic formatting to text. Each piece of Markdown formatting has a corollary in HTML. This means that online Markdown is easy to write and maintain. Markdown was released in 2004 and is now one of the most popular markup languages on the web, powering GitHub (with Github-flavored Markdown or GFD) and many other sites.Advantages of online markdownOnline Markdown editors make it easy to write Markdown in the browser. Markdown can be integrated into apps for writing (as is the case with Authorea -- which supports inline Markdown). It can also be used as a standalone service for things like note-taking. Some of the most popular online markdown editors are:DillingerMinimalist Online Markdown EditorMarkableStackEditAuthoreaMarkdown for research writingAuthorea is an online document editor that has full Markdown support. Whether you want to write entirely in Markdown, or switch between markdown and richtext, you can do so in Authorea. If you're writing technical or scientific documents you'll find that Authorea can support your writing style. Authorea also renders the online Markdown environment beautifully to HTML5 in the browser. This makes documents into beautiful web pages.

Introduction to online LaTeXLaTeX (pronounced lay-tech or lah-tech) is a Turing-complete markup language and typesetting framework used most often in the physical and mathematical sciences \cite{texentry}. LaTeX has history going back to 1985 -- and TeX, the progenitor of LaTeX, goes back to 1978 when it was introduced by computer scientist and mathematician Donald Knuth.LaTeX is first and foremost designed for typesetting mathematical notation on the printed page. LaTeX gives increased control for typesetting, enabling far stricter control of elements on a page -- from tables to specialized mathematical notation and so forth. LaTeX is widely used in the physical sciences and to this day LaTeX is used for typesetting journals, textbooks, and other structured texts.How to Write Mathematical Equations, Expressions, and Symbols with LaTeXIn recent years, several LaTeX software options have introduced online-only versions that bring the traditional LaTeX compiler to the cloud. These online LaTeX solutions come with advantages and disadvantages, however LaTeX on its own remains problematic for producing web-native content as it's extremely difficult to determine how text will look online if typeset using LaTeX.

Introduction to LaTeX Software LaTeX (pronounced lay-tech or lah-tech) is a markup language and document typesetting system. Developed by Leslie Lamport and originally released in 1985, the software has proliferated greatly since its release. It is distributed under a free and open source license, but there are numerous paid LaTeX software offerings  \cite{tex}.Despite the lack of a unified style specification, LaTeX remains a standard for many academic publications. Especially those in areas like physics, astronomy, mathematics, and other technical fields. Despite the lack of a WYSIWYG interface (LaTeX source code is vastly different than rendered LaTeX), LaTeX remains popular for typesetting and publishing because of the professional outputs available via LaTeX software.All LaTeX software originates from TeXThe progenitor of LaTeX is TeX, a typesetting system first introduced by computer scientist and mathematician Donald Knuth in 1978. TeX software was designed to make it easy to translate nonstandard characters to the computer. Also, to ensure that the results would be the same no matter where the content was viewed.Now more than 30 years old, LaTeX remains one of the most popular tools out there for writing scientific and technical content. Authorea recently estimated that ~20% of scholarly articles are still written in LaTeX. This is surprising since LaTeX was developed in the pre-Internet era and was originally designed for a world in which document editors copied the paradigm of pen and paper. Today's leading document editors and LaTeX software are designed for a world in which content is shared and distributed on the web. As a result, the old model of page-based document editing is starting to look more and more obsolete.Most popular LaTeX softwareThe most popular LaTeX software options today are compilers that run locally on a user's machine. Some example are the following:TeXmakerTeXstudioTeXworksTeXliveLyXIssues with LaTeX softwareLaTeX was not created with the modern web in mind. It was created with physical pieces of paper in mind. Therefore, LaTeX software is suited to produce professional on-the-page results. It is ill-suited to produce professionally typeset web content. This has long been a frustration for many and there have been numerous attempts to convert LaTeX to HTML over the years. The future of LaTeX software on the webAuthorea provides the only web-based LaTeX environment that renders beautifully to HTML5 in the browser.Further ReadingMathML on the Web, Please!

Introduction to document editorsA document editor or word processor is a software application that helps write, edit, format, and publish documents. A document editor differs from a text editor in that it is purpose-built for creating human-readable documents -- rather than simply for modifying text or code snippets. If you look at virtually any industry -- education, research, business, and so on -- document editors are more or less ubiquitous. The most popular document editors globally are Microsoft Word and Google Docs, but it wasn't always that way.History of the document editor

A document by Josh Nicholson. Click on the document to view its contents.

At Authorea we have big goals, not necessarily for ourselves, but for researchers and the scientific community. We envision a world where researchers write and publish their work openly, they include their data inside of interactive figures and seek collaborators and the community to test their work to ensure it is robust. Communication and publishing is dynamic and modern and research moves more efficiently because researchers move more efficiently. This vision may sound idealistic but it is being realized and we are diligently working to build a platform and community to foster it.  Over the last year we have taken tremendous steps towards creating the place to write and disseminate research. We relaunched our new editor only a few months ago and have redesigned nearly every part of Authorea to make it the best place to write research documents, for all researchers.  We've added direct submission to a growing list of leading journals, have introduced the first and only place to preprint in HTML, and introduced a new version control system for writing research papers.  In short, we've done a lot, really fast.We're going to continue to keep innovating but we're taking a brief pause from introducing new features to focus on reliability, usability, and research support. That means, we want to hear from you. What could we do better? What small or big changes on Authorea would help you be more efficient at research writing and publishing? Below are just some of the major highlights of what we've accomplished in the last few months, which do not include the bugs here and there and tweaks made based on user feedback/testing.  Acquire Research Publisher, The Winnower--LinkNew HomepageLaunch Authorea Beta, our new editor--Linkreal-time collaborationautosaveability to write in Markdown, LaTeX, and rich-text all within one articlenew toolbarPartner with Sample of Science--LinkPartner with eLife for direct submission--LinkImproved UX for LaTeX and Markdown rendering.Improved Author Management controlAdd multi-cite capability/improve design UX of citation tool.New pricing--LinkNew browse page--LinkIntroduce new version control system for research writing--LinkNew features page--LinkIntroduce preprinting capabilities and ability to issue DOI on Authorea--LinkAdd \labels, \refs, New commenting system

Authorea was founded with the mission of improving how researchers write and publish their findings. We created a platform that allows researchers to write across formats, to automatically add and format citations from over 86,594,377 scholarly documents, to directly submit to a growing list of leading journals, and to collaborate easily across continents and disciplines with superior version control.  We built Authorea to be the most powerful editor for researchers because we believe that research is fundamentally important in all aspects of life.  Today, we're happy to announce our latest addition to the Authorea toolset: the ability for researchers assign a digital object identifier (DOI) to their Authorea documents.  With this release, you can now write, cite, host data, and preprint on Authorea.What is a preprint?Preprints are publication-ready research papers that are made public before peer review and formal publication. Preprints are designed to address the speed of scientific communication, the accessibility of knowledge and the existing tendency to report mostly positive results.  Preprints have a long history in research dissemination and are part of the story about how the web was created. They have long been used in physics and math with nearly 10,000 preprints posted per month at ar\(\chi\)iv and are starting to gain rapid adoption in other disciplines like the life sciences.  In fact, the growth of preprints in other disciplines was named one of Science's events that shaped 2016.

Today, we're happy to announce the release of a new and improved version control for Authorea documents: History view. What is version control?A version control or revision control system automatically records changes to a piece of text over time. As a result, a document will contain underneath it the story of how it came together -- who made which contributions and when -- with the ability to track changes on a granular level over time. The Authorea system is based on Git, the most popular version control system in the world and one originally developed by the creator of the Linux operating system.