Eklavya's Blog ≡

Vim vs Overleaf

In this article, I compare these two approaches to editing LaTeX documents on Overleaf:

  1. Edit directly using Overleaf's editor.
  2. My setup: fetch from Overleaf using git, edit locally (using vim, pdflatex, and macOS Preview), and push to Overleaf using git.
Table of Contents

Advantages of Local Editing over Overleaf

  1. Offline use: Local editing is very useful in flights or areas with spotty connectivity. Sometimes I have lost changes with Overleaf.
  2. I can use git to check diffs, create branches, and selectively commit/discard changes.
  3. With a local PDF viewer, I can go back after clicking a hyperref.
  4. Overleaf's custom PDF viewer doesn't have the bookmarks sidebar. I can use the browser's PDF viewer instead of Overleaf's custom viewer to get back bookmarks, but then I lose dark mode and synctex.
  5. Spellcheck: Vim can iterate over typos. Vim can have per-project spellfiles.
  6. In vim I can set scrolloff=8. Then vim starts scrolling the screen a few lines before the cursor reaches the end of screen.

Advantages of Overleaf over Local Editing

  1. Multiple people can simultaneously edit the document.
  2. SyncTex: I can jump from position in PDF to position in code and vice versa.

Features Available in Both Setups

  1. Smart Autocomplete: In vim, this can be achieved using the TexLab plugin.
  2. Dark mode PDFs: As of Feb 2026, Overleaf does this using the CSS filter invert(95%) hue-rotate(180deg) brightness(90%) contrast(90%);. When building PDFs locally, I use github:sharmaeklavya2/tex-colorscheme. Overleaf's solution is much cleaner here.