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In-line rich text comments and multi-citation auto-complete

Stu · November 10, 2015

This blog post describes an historical feature (of Overleaf v1) which, at the time of writing this note, is scheduled to be replaced by improved functionality in Overleaf v2 (due for release on 4th September 2018). Consequently, this article is now of historical interest only.

Tweet screenshot about the new Overleaf auto-complete update

Last month saw the release of two enhancements to the Overleaf editor: the first to help with document review, the second to improve the auto-complete functionality when inserting citations from your bibliography.

Select and comment on specific text in Overleaf

When reviewing a manuscript, it’s often useful to be able to pick out certain words or phrases to comment upon. You can now do exactly that in Overleaf! Just select the text you wish to comment upon and click the ‘Add Comment’ button – it’s as simple as that.

Overleaf selected text for comment screenshot

Your selected text is quoted in the comment itself so that even if you change the underlying text you can still see the context of the original point.

Overleaf comment on selected text screenshot

So when your comment has been replied to, you’ve made the changes you need to, and you’re happy with the resolution, simply close the comment and retain the record of that discussion – just in case you need to come back to it later!

Overleaf comment on selected text with replies and closed screenshot

Auto-complete on multiple citations

Usually in the literature you’ll find more than one reference that’s appropriate to cite at a particular point in your article. LaTeX handles multiple citations with aplomb, and our auto-complete now does the same!

Once you’ve added your bibliography to your project (for example by importing directly from Mendeley, Zotero or CiteULike), our auto-complete will automatically find your references to make it easy to insert citations using the LaTeX cite commands.

Overleaf multiple citation autocomplete first cite screenshot

But what happens when you want to add a second reference at that same point? Following our latest update the autocomplete will be on hand to help again! Simply add a comma and start typing your second reference to bring up the auto-complete again for your second reference, and repeat as many times as you need.

Overleaf multiple citation autocomplete second cite screenshot

We hope these in-editor improvements help with your article writing and review, and if you have any comments or suggestions please leave them below or via our contact form. Happy TeXing!

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