Guide
Layouts, PDF and export
One document, five ways to set it. Change the layout at any time; the compiler in your browser turns the paper into pages and a PDF, and the export gives you real LaTeX.
The five layouts
Choose a layout in the top bar or under Document → Layout. It sets the page size, columns, fonts, heading style, numbering, captions, citation style and figure style.
| Layout | Page | Columns | Sections | Citations | Option |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article Single column, LaTeX article | A4 | 1 | 1, 1.1 | [1] | article |
| Two-column IEEE-like conference paper | letter | 2 | I, A | [1] | ieee |
| Journal Nature-like journal article | A4 | 2 | none | superscript ¹ | journal |
| arXiv preprint Single column, author–year citations | letter | 1 | 1, 1.1 | (Author, year) | arxiv |
| Letter / report Single column, wide margins, sans headings | A4 | 1 | 1, 1.1 | [1] | report |
Compiling to PDF
The Pages view is the compiled paper. LabTeX’s compiler runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded — and typesets the paper the way LaTeX would:
- Computer Modern text, justified with hyphenation, and formulas in TeX’s fonts and spacing;
- one or two columns, paragraphs and lists split across columns and pages;
- figures and tables that float to the next column or page when they do not fit, full-width figures at the top of a page;
- footnotes at the bottom of their page, running heads and page numbers;
- sections, equations, figures, tables, citations and references numbered and cross-referenced.
Choose Export → PDF (or press Ctrl/⌘ + P) and pick Save as PDF as the printer. Set margins to none/default and turn off headers and footers if your browser offers them; the page size is set for you. The PDF has real, selectable text and vector figures.
The page info above the pages says how many pages the paper has and warns about unknown citations and overfull boxes (something too tall for a whole column, outlined in red).
Export formats
| Export | What you get |
|---|---|
| LaTeX project (.zip) | main.tex, refs.bib, figures/fig-N.png (high resolution) with .svg and the MathLab code .m, the LabTeX source and a README. Upload the .zip to Overleaf as a new project, or compile it locally. |
| LaTeX file (.tex) | Only main.tex, with the references inside. Figures appear as framed placeholders (with their code in comments) until you add the image files. |
| LabTeX source (.labtex) | The document itself, to open again in LabTeX (Drafts → Open file…) or keep under version control. |
| References (.bib) | The BibTeX library. |
| Web page (.html) | The compiled pages as one HTML file, figures included as vector graphics. It prints to PDF too. |
| Copy share link | A link that contains the whole paper, compressed; whoever opens it gets a copy as a new draft. |
Compiling the LaTeX
The export uses only standard packages (amsmath, graphicx, booktabs, natbib, hyperref, geometry, lmodern), so it compiles with any TeX Live or MiKTeX installation and on Overleaf:
latexmk -pdf main.tex # or pdflatex main && bibtex main && pdflatex main && pdflatex main
The layouts map to the standard article class with matching options (two columns, paper size, heading styles), so the LaTeX version looks close to LabTeX’s pages. For a journal’s own class, change the first line of main.tex to it — the body is plain LaTeX.
Sharing
Export → Copy share link puts the whole paper in a link (nothing is stored on a server). Each MathLab figure also has Edit in MathLab ↗, a link to its code in MathLab, and the .tex export carries that link in a comment above each figure.