Integration Update: Link Sharing

This article was originally published on the ShareLaTeX blog and is reproduced here for archival purposes.

Since our announcement earlier this summer that ShareLaTeX has joined forces with Overleaf, we’ve been actively working to harmonize features and functionality across the two platforms in preparation for migrating everyone to a unified service which delivers the best of both worlds—and much more besides!

An important aspect of the integration work is to keep our user communities fully updated with our progress. Following on from the addition of auto-compilation to ShareLaTeX last month, we are delighted to share some further developments: a new Link Sharing feature for ShareLaTeX.

As with auto-compilation, the ability to share a project by a secure URL was a key feature of Overleaf that was highlighted in the user survey as one that we should definitely keep and improve when bringing the two platforms together. When looking at how to implement this on ShareLaTeX and on the combined platform, we took the opportunity to review the feedback we’d collected on the Overleaf version of this feature. One such piece of feedback was that some users weren’t always aware that, on Overleaf, the ability to share by URL was turned on by default, and that they’d expected to have to explicitly choose to enable it. For the implementation on ShareLaTeX, this feature is thus turned off by default (but can be easily turned-on, by following the steps outlined below).

For existing ShareLaTeX users, the new Link Sharing feature replaces the original “public projects” feature, meaning that ShareLaTeX users can now also share projects privately via a secure URL, rather than needing to invite all collaborators personally.

Enabling link sharing on ShareLaTeX

Using Link Sharing on ShareLaTeX is easy. From within the project you wish to share with others:

• Select Share from the ShareLaTeX toolbar
• Select Turn on link sharing

• From within the pop-up window, enable link sharing for this project by selecting Turn on link sharing:

After enabling link sharing the following screen appears to provide you with various options for sharing your project:

With reference to the screenshot:

1. This URL provides edit-access to your project: anyone you share it with will be able to edit your project.
2. This URL provides read-only access to your project: anyone you share it with will be able to view/read your project but they cannot edit it.

Disabling link sharing on ShareLaTeX

To disable link sharing:

• Select Share from the ShareLaTeX toolbar
• Select Turn off link sharing:

If you decide to Turn off link sharing, any links you have shared (e.g., directly by e-mail outside of ShareLaTeX) will no longer work and only the collaborators that you have invited from within ShareLaTeX will continue to have access to your project.

We hope that users who like to use both platforms will benefit from having consistent methods and options for sharing links to their projects, and inviting collaborators.