Snippetleaf

A port of Obsidian Latex Suite to overleaf that aims to make typesetting LaTeX math as fast as handwriting.

Inspired by Gilles Castel's setup using UltiSnips.

The plugin's main feature is snippets, which help you write LaTeX quicker through shortcuts and text expansion! For example, type

• "sqx" instead of "\sqrt{x}"
• "a/b" instead of "\frac{a}{b}"
• "par x y " instead of "\frac{\partial x}{\partial y}"

See Gilles Castel's writeup for more information.

The plugin comes with a set of default snippets, loosely based on Gilles Castel's. You can modify them, remove them, and write your own.

Usage

To get started, type "dm" to enter display math mode. Try typing the following:

• "xsr" → "x^{2}".
• "x/y Tab" → "\frac{x}{y}".
• "sin @t" → "\sin \theta".

Have a look at the cheatsheet for a list of commonly used default snippets.

Once these feel familiar, you can check out the default snippets for more commands. e.g.

• "par Tab f Tab x Tab" → "\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}".
• "dint Tab 2pi Tab sin @t Tab @t Tab" → "\int_{0}^{2\pi} \sin \theta \, d\theta".

You can also add your own snippets! For more info on writing snippets, see here. You can view snippets written by others and share your own snippets here.

Aside from snippets, the plugin also comes with several other features that aim to make writing LaTeX easier.

Installation

Firefox

• Go the latest release and download the .xpi file in the firefox based browser you want to add the extension.
• There should open a popup, click on Continue to Installation and when its done downloading, click add.
• If for whatever reason this doesn't work or you can't download it on that browser, you first hide any sidebar on the left/right and drag-and-drop the .xpi file from your file-explorer in firefox. It should give you a popup where it asks you if the addons should be added. Click add to install the addon.

Chromium (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, etc)

• Go to the latest release and download the snippetleaf-<version-number>.zip file.
• Extract the zip file into any folder, for example snippetleaf.
• Inside the folder snippetleaf, there should be a file called manifest.json, if there is only a folder in snippetleaf, check if that folder has a file manifest.json.
• Go to chrome://extensions or open your extensions settings. (the url chrome://extensions might get redirected to <insert-browser-name>://extensions like brave://extensions).
• turn on developer mode
• Click on Load unpacked
• Select the folder which contains the manifest.json file, in this example thus snippetleaf.

To check if the installation succeeded, reload your overleaf website and there should be little message in the corner saying Snippetleaf settings updated!.

Note

For pictures of the installation on brave see #23 (comment). This addon relies on a very recent patch of overleaf which has not been brought into overleaf-toolkit. Thus if you self-host your overleaf instance and you can patch your instance, see #23 (comment) on how to patch your overleaf-toolkit.

Safari/other browsers

Not supported, use a chromium/firefox browser. If anyone is willing to release this addon for safari you can open an issue and I'll redirect it to that version. As for other browsers, you can open up an issue asking for support if its not already supported.

Chrome extension store/ Edge extension store/ Mozilla addons store

Coming soon(ish), need to make an icon and then I'll try to release it on there.

Features

Auto-fraction

Lets you type "1/x" instead of "\frac{1}{x}".

For example, it makes the following expansions:

• x/ → \frac{x}{}
• (a + b(c + d))/ → \frac{a + b(c + d)}{}

and moves the cursor inside the brackets.

Once done typing the denominator, press Tab to exit the fraction.

Matrix shortcuts

While inside a matrix, array, align, or cases environment,

• Pressing Tab will insert the "&" symbol.
• Pressing Enter will insert "\\" and move to a new line.
• Pressing Shift + Enter will move to the end of the next line (which you can use to exit the matrix).

Tabout

To make it easier to navigate and exit equations,

• Pressing Tab while the cursor is at the end of an equation will move the cursor outside the $ symbols.
• Otherwise, pressing Tab will advance the cursor to the next closing bracket: ), ], }, >, or |.

Visual snippets

Sometimes you want to annotate math, or cancel or cross out terms. Selecting some math with the cursor and typing

• "U" will surround it with "\underbrace".
• "O" will surround it with "\overbrace".
• "C" will surround it with "\cancel".
• "K" will surround it with "\cancelto".
• "B" will surround it with "\underset".

Auto-enlarge brackets

When a snippet containing "\sum", "\int" or "\frac" is triggered, any enclosing brackets will automatically be enlarged with "\left" and "\right".

Snippets

Snippets are shortcuts that allow you to insert certain text based on certain triggers. For example, the default snippet

{trigger: "@l", replacement: "\\lambda", options: "mA"}

will expand "@l" to "\lambda".

Snippets can be edited in the plugin settings. The structure of a snippet is as follows:

{
  trigger: string | RegExp,
  replacement: string | (arg) => string | false,
  options: string,
  priority?: number,
  description?: string,
  flags?: string,
  version?: 1 | 2,
}

• trigger : The text that triggers this snippet.
  • Triggers can also be regular expressions. See here for more info.
• replacement : The text to replace the trigger with.
  • Replacements can also be JavaScript functions. See here for more info.
• options : See below.
• priority (optional): This snippet's priority. Snippets with higher priority are run first. Can be negative. Defaults to 0.
• description (optional): A description for this snippet.
• flags (optional): Flags for regex snippets.
• version (optional): version number for snippet syntax. See here for more info

Options

• t : Text mode. Only run this snippet outside math
• m : Math mode. Only run this snippet inside math. Shorthand for both M and n
• M : Block math mode. Only run this snippet inside a $$ ... $$ or \[ ... \] block
• n : Inline math mode. Only run this snippet inside a $ ... $ or \( ... \) block
• A : Auto. Expand this snippet as soon as the trigger is typed. If omitted, the Tab key must be pressed to expand the snippet
• r : Regex. The trigger will be treated as a regular expression
• v : Visual. Only run this snippet on a selection. The trigger should be a single character
• w : Word boundary. Only run this snippet when the trigger is preceded (and followed by) a word delimiter, such as ., ,, or -.

Insert tabstops for the cursor to jump to by writing "@0", "@1", etc. in the replacement.

For examples and more details on writing snippets, including regex snippets and function snippets, have a look at the documentation.

You can view snippets written by others and share your own snippets here.

Warning

Snippet files are interpreted as JavaScript and can execute arbitrary code. Always be careful with snippets shared from others to avoid running malicious code.

Cheatsheet

Trigger	Replacement
mk	\( \)
dm	\[ \]
sr	^{2}
cb	^{3}
rd	^{ }
_	_{ }
sq	\sqrt{ }
x/yTab	\frac{x}{y}
//	\frac{ }{ }
"	\text{ }
text	\text{ }
x1	x_{1}
x,.	\mathbf{x}
x.,	\mathbf{x}
xdot	\dot{x}
xhat	\hat{x}
xbar	\bar{x}
xvec	\vec{x}
xtilde	\tilde{x}
xund	\underline{x}
ee	e^{ }
invs	^{-1}

When running a snippet that moves the cursor inside brackets {}, press Tab to exit the brackets.

Greek letters

Trigger	Replacement	Trigger	Replacement
;a	\alpha	eta	\eta
;b	\beta	mu	\mu
;g	\gamma	nu	\nu
;G	\Gamma	xi	\xi
;d	\delta	Xi	\Xi
;D	\Delta	pi	\pi
;e	\epsilon	Pi	\Pi
:e	\varepsilon	rho	\rho
;z	\zeta	tau	\tau
;t	\theta	phi	\phi
;T	\Theta	Phi	\Phi
;k	\kappa	chi	\chi
;l	\lambda	psi	\psi
;L	\Lambda	Psi	\Psi
;s	\sigma
;S	\Sigma
;o	\omega
ome	\omega

For Greek letters with short names (2-3 characters), just type their name, e.g. "pi" → "\pi".

Acknowledgements

• @artisticat1's Obsidian Latex Suite for the snippet engine.
• @TeXlyre for the LaTeX language support.
• @tth05's Obsidian Completr for the basis of the tabstop code.
• Dynamic Highlights for reference.
• Quick Latex for Obsidian for inspiration.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for more information.

Coming from Obsidian latex suite

See the DOCS

Support

If you like this plugin and want to say thanks, you can buy the original author of obsidian latex suite coffee here.