Documents Live, a web authoring and publishing system
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Table of contents
First published on Friday, Jul 25, 2025 and last modified on Wednesday, May 27, 2026 by François Chaplais.
Documents Live provides an online editor for your source code that is based on the Ace editor . Most of the interface of the code editor is the same in all editors available in Documents Live: source code editor, inline editor and discussion editor.
The source code editor can be accessed for you document in two ways:
- from the action menu in the dashboard
- from the document web page by selecting “Edit source” in the View menu of the menu bar.
After that, you will be re-directed to a dedicated page to edit your code. Here is a screenshot.
The blue button at the right of the toolbar has only one function: save your code.
1 The toolbar
The left part is devoted to the search and replace operations. At its right is a collection of LaTeX-related editing buttons.
1.1 Search and replace
The input field on the left is where you enter the string you are looking for. The search is case-sensitive. To launch the search, click on the magnifier icon next to it. Pressing the enter/return key will not initiate the search. Actually, the keyboard action is first intercepted by the browser which, in this case, will reload the page. Doing so would lose your unsaved changes.
You can initiate four types of searches:
- standard search
- case insensitive search
- use a regular expression
- search for a whole word
When you have found your first match, hit Ctrl-K (Windows/Linux) or Command-G (Mac) to search for the next occurrence.
At the right of the replace field are two search and replace buttons. The first one will do a single search and replace operation. Hitting it repeatedly will repeat the process for the next occurrences. The second button performs a global search and replace.
1.2 LaTeX tools
Here is a quick description of the LaTeX related dropdown menus, as seen in figure 1.
- This dropdown menu lets you insert a sectioning command. If some text was selected before performing the action, it will be used as the parameter of the sectioning command, i.e., the section title. This is a general behavior (when applicable) of the LaTeX editor actions.
- This lets you style the selected text.
- gives you access to some common LaTeX commands.
- gives you access to some common LaTeX environments.
- gives access to Documents Live specific commands. The
environmentaction creates an environment whose name is the selected text. For instance, to create averbatimenvironment, type verbatim in the editor, select the word, and use theenvironmentaction on it. - is dedicated to Documents Live styling commands fo the web (borders, margins, etc...)
1.2.1 Keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are available in all of LaTeX editors. Make sure you are editing code, or the shortcut may have undesirable results. Most of the shortcuts apply to the selection, if any. Here is a list.
| Ctrl/Cmd M |
inserts \item
|
| Ctrl/Cmd L | inserts/makes a label |
| Ctrl/Cmd R | inserts/makes a reference |
| Ctrl/Cmd I | applies italic style |
| Ctrl/Cmd B | applies bold style |
| Ctrl/Cmd E | makes an environment out of the selection |
| Ctrl/Cmd shift C | inserts/make a caption |
1.2.2 Editor help
The question mark reveals help for the editor.
2 Two Documents Live pre-processing commands
Documents Live provides two special LaTeX commands that can be incorporated in your code for global modification of your code.
The first one is \alias. here is the syntax:
\alias{original}{replacement}
This command is very powerful. It replaces any occurence of original in the source code by replacement.
The second one is \regAlias. It has the same syntax as \alias, but executes a regular expression search and replace with the pattern original.
Both commands are executed at import time, which means they do not alter the source code. If you are unhappy with the result, modify or delete the commands in the code.
3 The Editor menu
Here is a screenshot of the Editor menu (in the menu bar).
3.1 Top half
-
Basicspops up a modal with a recap of the basic shortkeys for the Editor -
Editor shortcutsbrings you to the help page that lists the default shortcuts of the Ace editor -
Savejust saves the source -
Export saved sourcedownloads the body of the last save as a.textext file.
3.1.1 Bottom half
-
Compilecompiles the document, i.e. import followed by export. This brings you to the web page view. -
Inline editbrings you to the Inline Editor for this document without processing the code further. -
Document viewbrings you to the web page view for this document without processing the code further. -
Your document listbrings you to the dashboard with the document underlined in the list, which is helpful if you have a long list of documents.
4 Recommended workflow
If your document is not very long, we advise you to do the following:
- open a tab in the browser with the source code Editor
- open a tab with the document web page
- have a PDF view of the document in another window for reference
Then:
- edit and save the code in the editor tab
- in the web page view, compile the document from the “View” menu by selecting the “Compile” menu item
- check the result and compare with the original if needed