User Support Policy

Summary

Our support is primarily intended to help users with Overleaf-specific questions, and to advise on LaTeX best practices. We also offer advice when users hit LaTeX problems that they encounter in their work, and will always try to help if we can.

As we are a small team covering a large userbase, we’ve provided the notes below to help you self-serve help where possible! Please note that the extent of the help we can offer on a particular project is necessarily limited to helping with specific issues as they arise, due to the volume of support queries we cover.

Help getting started

For general LaTeX questions that come up for users who are less familiar with LaTeX, we try to provide pointers to the many available LaTeX resources and online forums. LaTeX is a mature technology that has a helpful user community, so there are a lot of great resources available for learners.

For example, Overleaf’s own LaTeX documentation (https://www.overleaf.com/learn) and webinars (https://www.overleaf.com/events/webinars) are suitable for users at all levels of experience.

There are also a number of active community forums such as TeX StackExchange (https://tex.stackexchange.com/) and LaTeX Community (https://latex.org/forum/), along with a fantastic new LaTeX tutorial series in a number of languages (https://www.learnlatex.org/).

Whether you’re new to LaTeX or just need a refresher, we recommend these resources as your first port of call for getting started.

Debugging errors

If you are working on a project in Overleaf and run into an error, don’t panic! Many errors have a simple solution, and the specific place the error is occurring is usually highlighted by Overleaf to help you find and resolve it. We strongly recommend that errors are dealt with as they arise, and that best practices are followed at all stages of the project—this helps ensure that errors and document complexity don’t get out of hand.

Our documentation covers some common scenarios which can trigger LaTeX errors, for example this article on dealing with compile timeout errors. Searching our documentation, or on forums such as TeX StackExchange, is often a good first step to finding solutions.

Issues with local installations or third-party (e.g. journal) systems

Unfortunately we are unable to provide support for local TeX installations, or on issues arising through the use of local LaTeX editors, unless the same issue can be replicated directly on overleaf.com.

On a similar note, although we provide some guidance to help with journal and pre-print submissions (such as our checklist for arXiv submissions), please note that we can’t generally provide support for debugging errors caused by third-party submission systems, as we don’t have access to those systems. In cases where your project compiles successfully on Overleaf but does not compile in the journal submission system, it’s best to contact the journal directly for help—an appropriate contact should be listed on the journal’s web page.

Contacting Overleaf

How to get in touch

If, after trying the above, you do run into an error on Overleaf that you can’t solve, our support team may be able to help! The best way to contact us is via the “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the project menu of the project you’re having trouble with:

You can also reach us via the form on our contact page, or if you are having trouble accessing that page, via [email protected].

Scope of Overleaf support

Please be aware that we can only provide a limited amount of corrections and hands-on work on a particular project. It’s also important that your LaTeX project with the error is already on Overleaf before you contact us, as that’s the only way we can see the error first-hand to try to help. If you can provide as much detail as possible as to the error you’ve encountered, and what you’ve already done in trying to fix it, that is always much appreciated 😊.

Please also note that we do not provide typesetting services, and cannot help fix a document that has been allowed to get into a very bad state through accumulated errors. Our experience with individual packages, particularly ones that are very domain-specific, may be limited!

Response times

Response times for support queries can vary based on the current volume of support requests, the complexity of the problem, and staff scheduling (time of day, holidays, etc.). We attempt to answer questions as quickly as possible, with most support queries responded to by next business day. Please note that we do not provide over-the-phone support.

As mentioned above, we also try to encourage self-serve help where possible, as that’s usually the quickest way to resolve things! If you are able to address problems as they arise, and make use of the features in Overleaf that help deal with problems (the code-check, error reporting, and history features, for example), issues that require critical attention will hopefully be avoided.

Priority Support

For users on one of our premium plans, we prioritize and escalate support requests where necessary. For our institutional and enterprise customers, please contact your account manager with any queries about your license.

As mentioned in the response times section above, we attempt to answer all questions as quickly as possible, with most support queries responded to within 24 hours. If, however, we are in a particularly busy period, and are unable to get to all queries, where possible we will prioritize support requests from users on a premium plan.

Please note that we do not provide additional debugging support for users on a premium plan.

Server Pro & Community Edition

For customers using a self-hosted Server Pro instance we will provide reasonable support to assist with the resolution of technical issues relating to the installation, configuration, maintenance and general usage of Server Pro, to a single, named staff member.

Support services for Server Pro specifically exclude:

• direct support for the LaTeX language including layout, typesetting, and programming errors;
• defects or errors resulting from any modifications to Server Pro unless made, instructed, or approved by us in writing;
• support for any version of Server Pro other than:
1. the two (2) most current point releases of the current major version; and
2. the last released point release of the previous major version;
• support for any non-current version of Server Pro that is more than twenty-four (24) months old;
• any fault in the environment or in any software or hardware used in conjunction with Server Pro; and
• defects or errors caused by the use with any software products other than those specifically certified for use with Server Pro in the documentation of Server Pro.

If you have any questions regarding your Server Pro instance, please reach out to either your account manager directly, or send us a message via our general contact form. You can also find our online documentation for Server Pro installation and maintenance here.

Please note that we are not able to provide support for local installations of the free Overleaf Community Edition.