The vast majority of academic researchers write their research in Microsoft Word \cite{Pepe_2016}. Word is easy to use due to its what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) interface, however it is limited in many ways that are necessary for effectively communicating research. It necessitates the use of publishers (some of which have very antiquated models) and it limits the capability to collaborate and share data. Furthermore, it means that proper research publishing and indexing will always be costly as the conversion from Word to HTML and JATS XML (the gold standard of research articles) is an onerous process, often times manually performed "offshore". On Authorea we seek to marry the ease of writing on Word or Google Docs with the power of LaTeX, HTML, and Git. By doing that we seek to combine the writing and publishing process so that writing is publishing. We believe that this paradigm can not only make communicating research quicker but can also make it drastically cheaper for authors and publishers.The power of LaTeX 💪LaTeX is a powerful markup language used primarily by those in the hard sciences--physicists, computer scientists, mathematicians etc. It is immensely powerful for controlling the presentation of documents, however it comes with a steep learning curve. Want to bold text? In LaTeX you need to write \textbf{bold}. Want to italicize text? Write \textit{italicize}. In the eyes of some researchers that extra control and access to the underlying layer of markup is a benefit allowing the precise control of typesetting at a professional level. On the converse, many, if not most, might see this as as being too cumbersome for editing and thus will never use it. At Authorea, we believe that there are strengths and weaknesses of LaTeX. We seek to provide a broad spectrum of LaTeX support so that whether you are Donald Knuth himself or someone who thinks LaTeX is a rubber, you can take advantage of Authorea and the power of LaTeX. Below, we highlight how we are re-positioning and repurposing LaTeX in a way that is accessible to \textit{all researchers}. 🙃 Labeling and referencing figures and headingsLabeling figures and tables is something that is commonly done when writing a research article but how you do this depends upon how you write research articles. If you're writing in Word or Google Docs, you may refer to a figure or table like this:As seen in Figure 1.If you're writing in LaTeX, you will likely refer to a figure in a different way, like this:As seen in Figure \ref{527885}.While this is not a revolutionary change, it makes editing easier if you're working with multiple figures and you need to change the organization of the document around. On Authorea, labeling and numbering is updated automatically whenever you add, remove, or move a figure or heading. Insert a new figure or move a figure around and they are automatically re-labelled. This feature is expected in LaTeX (and commonly used) but is difficult to achieve and consequently use in Word. We've made it easy for researchers that typically write in Word, as well as LaTeX writers, to label and reference any part of a document.More on labels and references here 👈Powerful document exportingResearchers who write in LaTeX not only write differently than most researchers, they also tend to publish and share their work differently. Indeed, Figure \ref{527885} highlights the differences in pre-printing (self-publishing) between fields where LaTeX is the norm (arXiv) and where LaTeX is largely unheard of (Life sciences). Although there are many issues and reasons for the differences in preprint growth between disciplines, it can't be ignored that LaTeX helps facilitate preprints by allowing researchers to produce professionally typeset documents on their own.
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