Visual mode is a true WYSIWYG surface: you edit the rendered document directly, the way you would in a word processor, and Writano keeps the underlying LaTeX correct for you. It is the fastest way to draft prose, and a comfortable place for co-authors who would rather not touch source.
What you see is the document
There are no blue command boxes and no raw markup. Headings, emphasis, lists and tables render as formatted content, and math is typeset live as you type. Selecting text brings up a floating toolbar for the common formatting actions, so bold, italics, and structure are a click away.
Math and raw LaTeX as islands
Anything that has no visual equivalent — a math expression, a custom macro, a raw environment — is held as an atomic island. An island shows its rendered result inline; open it and you get a small popover to edit its LaTeX source without leaving the visual view.
This is why switching modes is lossless: the document is parsed into a model, not rewritten with fragile find-and-replace, so your preamble, macros, and spacing survive the round trip.
Editing live, together
Visual mode is fully collaborative. Every co-author has a coloured caret and a name pill, and presence is mode-aware — someone editing the raw source shows as “In LaTeX mode” while you stay in Visual. Changes are written back to the shared document with a minimal diff, so people in different modes never fight over the file.
Tip: Reach for LaTeX mode when you need to hand-tune packages or a tricky environment, then flip straight back to Visual to keep writing.