Useful Tips for Writing a Paper on Overleaf

From helpful highlighting tips when collaborating, to working with tables, and how to avoid mistakes.

4 min readSep 12, 2021

There are barriers to entry to be familiar with LaTeX. It will take you quite a while to get used to LaTeX. If you’re a researcher or graduate student writing a paper, you’re probably collaborating on LaTeX editor Overleaf. I also used LaTeX to write my Curriculum Vitae or course assignments to get used to LaTeX.

I would like to share several tips that were useful to me as I got used to LaTeX and recently wrote a paper using Overleaf. Perhaps the tips I share are useful when collaborating, or those that can help you minimize mistakes!

Useful Packages for Highlighting

In Overleaf, there is a space to enter comments in the review function, but this function does not appear in the compiled pdf, so it is sometimes inconvenient.
This means that the highlighted text is not visible in the pdf, so time is spent trying to figure out where to edit it.

Strikethrough using cancel

If you use \usepackage{cancel} , you can check the parts that need to be modified a little more usefully when working together.

The cancel package provides the following four modes.

\cancel{text to cancel} draws a diagonal slash through its argument
\bcancel{text to cancel} draws a backslash through its argument
\xcancel{text to cancel} draws an X mark
\cancelto{<value>}{<expression>} draws a diagonal arrow through the <expression> pointing to the <value>

Note: When you use \cancelto , it works only in the math-mode. For example:

\cancelto{$0$}{$x$}

The below screenshot is the usage of the commands:

\begin{itemize}
    \item \verb+\cancel{canceled text}+ : \cancel{canceled text}
    \item \verb+\bcancel{b-canceled text}+ : \bcancel{b-canceled text}
    \item \verb+\xcancel{x-canceled text}+ : \xcancel{x-canceled text}
    \item \verb+\cancelto{<value>}{<expression>}+ : $\cancelto{value}{expression}$
\end{itemize}

I prefer to use the \cancelto command to mark the text need to correct. Here, I do not introduce urlem package, because there are conflicts with the style required by some conferences.

Highlight with xcolor

The simplest manner to use colors in your LaTeX document is by importing the package xcolor. The xcolor package is more flexible and supports a larger number of color models so that I recommend it. Below is an example:

\begin{itemize}
    \item This is the \textcolor{Red}{text color with the red color}.
    \item This is the \colorbox{Apricot}{color box with the apricot color}.
    \item This is the \fcolorbox{SkyBlue}{GreenYellow}{greenyellow color box with the skyblue frame}.
\end{itemize}

Note: If you want to use color names such as Apricot or SkyBlue, you need to declare the dvipsnames option. You can add option like this \usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor} .

Useful Tips for Working with Tables

The two tips I introduce will help you reduce your mistakes such as omitting an ampersand(&) without knowing it or entering an incorrect value.

Select Multiple Lines by Dragging in Tables

Overleaf supports the feature to use multiple cursors by dragging. This feature is really useful for working with tables. Adding ampersands is quite cumbersome, especially if you need to add a column. In this case, you can use this function to add and avoid the mistake of accidentally omitting the ampersand.

The above gif is the case of adding a new column. As above, you can drag the line you want while holding down the option(⌥) key.

⌥ + {drag the line you want to insert}

Useful Shortcuts for Increasing/Decreasing Numeric Values

Increase or decrease a numeric value using `⌘ + ⌥ + {↑/↓}` `shortcut`

⌘ + ⌥ + {↑/↓}

When you want to change the value. use command+option+arrow key! This shortcut has a function to sequentially increment or decrement a numeric value. This is much more efficient than simply modifying numeric values with a keypad. For example, when you want to modify 19 to 22, you have to correct both the tens’ and the one’s place. In this process, a mistake in entering the wrong value may occur. Because there is a 3 next to the number 2. A way to reduce these typing mistakes with fewer keystrokes is the shortcut I introduce.

It will reduce the mistake of entering the wrong value. Perhaps this tip is a valuable shortcut you don’t know where.

Reference

Strikethrough in LaTeX, https://jansoehlke.com/2010/06/strikethrough-in-latex/