Unless you are reading this document in the form of PDF, or on printed paper, chances are that you are already using Authorea to read this document. In that case, refer to the 'bread crumb' or the top of this document and you will see this bar. If you will note, this bar has the following elements (more or less, from left to right):
- Document -- a drop down arrow next to it with some options that relate to the document itself
- Format -- a drop down arrow next to it that provides you with context sensitive formatting of the text you write
- Insert -- a drop down arrow next to it where you can insert different elements to the document
- B -- indicates that you can decorate fonts with bold font property
- I -- indicates that you can decorate the font of your document with italics
- h1, h2, h3 -- three levels of headers
- x2 and x2 -- these indicate you can insert superscript and subscripts to your document
- <> --- this indicates you can insert codes in your document
- A paintbrush icon -- suggests that you can colour the fonts in your document like red or other colour or shade the font
- An icon with numbers to insert numbered list
- An icon with dots to indicate that you can press this to insert a bulleted list of items
- Two indent icons that suggest you can increase or decrease indents
- A quote symbol to indicate that you can insert quotes
- cite -- where you can insert citations. This icon will also open a window where you can search for citations on the web or locally stored on your Authorea space
- A picture icon indicating that you can insert images (graphs, drawings, images)
- A spreadsheet icon indicates that you can insert tables
- A chain icon -- you can insert hyperlinks
- An anchor icon -- you can insert anchor points (referred to as 'reference' in Authorea)
- x2 y -- indicates that you can insert equations
- A speech bubble that suggests you can insert comments
- P -- where you can publish or post your paper: if you click P, you will see three options (this is not a drop down option but should be in my opinion)
- A box with an upward arrow -- suggests you can export your document to many different formats
- A text indicating the 'save' status of your document
- A lock icon indicates the article is private ('locked') or free to public ('unlocked')
- share -- where you can share the document with others
- an icon of cog -- where you can tweak the various properties of the document
That's a lot. But those are the ones you will need for writing a document for academic purposes. This is purpose fit to allow you with a set of features that you will use for authoring academic documents. Compared to that layout, check out what happens when you use a standard word processing app (here we will see a Microsoft Word document toolbar):