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Getting started

Texifine is a block editor that produces real LaTeX. You write a document the way you would in a notes app — a heading, a paragraph, an equation, a figure — and Texifine writes the LaTeX source and compiles it into a PDF. You never have to type a preamble, and you can read the generated source at any time.

The document you start with

A new account opens on one document, Welcome to Texifine. It shows the blocks by being made of them: open it, read it, press Compile and look at the PDF Preview tab. It is yours — change it, or delete it once you have seen enough; it will not come back.

From an empty page to a PDF

Your first document

  1. Open Projects in the dashboard and choose New Document. Give it a name: it is the name shown in your dashboard, and the title printed on the first page until you write another one.
  2. Click the document to open the editor.
  3. Start typing. You are in a paragraph. Press Enter to start the next one.
  4. To add something other than text, click a block in the left column — Heading, Equation, Figure… — or type / in an empty paragraph.
  5. Open the PDF Preview tab to see the compiled document.

Your work is saved on its own, about two seconds after you stop typing. There is no save button.

The three tabs

The centre of the editor shows the same document three ways:

TabWhat it shows
EditorThe blocks you write and arrange.
LaTeXThe source Texifine generates from them. Read-only: you can copy it, not edit it.
PDF PreviewThe compiled document, exactly as it will print.

The editor is a comfortable writing surface, not a pixel-accurate copy of the page. Page breaks, in particular, exist only in the PDF. What the editor does show exactly are the things that matter while writing: formulas, the numbers of your equations, figures, tables and theorems, the width of a figure and the rules of a table.

What you get without asking

  • Numbering. Chapters, sections, equations, figures, tables and theorems are numbered for you, and renumbered when you move them.
  • Cross-references that stay right. A reference points at a block, not at a number, so "see Theorem 2.1" follows the theorem wherever it goes.
  • A document in your language. Choose English or French and LaTeX prints "Chapter" or "Chapitre", "Table" or "Tableau", with the right typography.
  • A4 pages, standard margins, a real typesetting engine. The PDF is produced by LaTeX, not by an imitation of it.

Where to go next