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Last night saw the launch of our new product ‘Overleaf’ at the British Library.

Overleaf is a new collaborative science publication system, making the whole process of writing and editing scientific papers much quicker for both authors and publishers. The launch event celebrated a new year for science and publishing, looking back at the major news stories from 2013, and looking forward at what's to come in 2014.

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The first beta release is a major new upgrade to our collaborative writing software, which includes a new user interface, an updated project pane for users to manage files, and the first release of a new Rich Text mode for easier editing and collaboration.

The new rich text mode renders headings, formatting and equations directly in the editor, to make it seem more familiar to ‘What You See is What You Get’ (WYSIWYG) users. This isn't simply of benefit to an individual author, collaboration has now become much easier for group work.

The new mode is fully integrated with WriteLaTeX’s existing service which automatically compiles a user’s document in the background, so users can see how the final typeset document will look whilst writing.

By combining an easy-to-use editor with publication-ready output, Overleaf makes scientific publishing accessible to more people, and helps to make it quicker and easier to write and publish work online.

At the publishing end, once an author’s work is complete, they can use Overleaf’s integrated submission system to publish their work immediately. The key benefit to publishers is that they instantly receive the author’s work, in the right format, as soon as they are finished writing, providing immediate access and enabling rapid feedback to the author.

John Hammersley, CEO of WriteLaTeX, said: “Overleaf makes writing scientific papers easier by bringing the whole scientific process into the cloud, from idea to writing to review to publication.”

“We're excited to be working with open access publishers across various disciplines to create a complete cloud-based approach to scientific publishing. Today’s launch of Overleaf is just the beginning as we have further significant product developments to add later in the year.”

Head to Overleaf to find out more.