Writano is a dual-mode LaTeX editor: you write in a visual editor or in raw LaTeX, and Writano’s own compiler turns your source into a PDF. This guide walks the shortest path from an empty project to a rendered document.

Create a project

From the Projects dashboard, choose New project. You can start blank or from a template — the built-in starters include an IEEE conference paper, APS RevTeX, a PhD thesis, an academic CV, and an arXiv preprint. A blank project gives you a single main.tex with a minimal preamble:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}

\title{My First Paper}
\author{Your Name}
\maketitle

\section{Introduction}
Hello, Writano.

\end{document}

Everything you type is saved to the cloud automatically — there is no explicit save button, and you can close the tab and pick up where you left off.

Compile to PDF

Press the Compile button (or the keyboard shortcut shown in its tooltip). Writano sends your source to its own LaTeX compiler and streams the result into the PDF panel beside the editor.

  • The compiler ships a complete LaTeX distribution, so packages like amsmath, graphicx, biblatex, and tikz are already available.
  • If a compile fails, the raw LaTeX log is surfaced in an error panel so you can jump to the offending line.
  • Successful builds are cached, so re-compiling after a small edit is fast.

Tip: The PDF panel has a dropdown to open the document in a new tab with auto-refresh, which is handy on a second monitor.

Where to go next

Once you can compile, the natural next steps are switching editing modes, adding figures, and citing your sources: