Writing and Formatting

Writing and Formatting

Everything here is on the command bar and, where it has one, on a keyboard shortcut. Hover any command bar icon to see its name, what it does, and its shortcut.

Headings

Put the cursor on a line and press Ctrl+1 … Ctrl+6, or use the H dropdown on the command bar.

Choosing a level sets it rather than toggling it, so pressing Ctrl+2 on a level-2 heading leaves it alone. The only way back to normal text is Ctrl+0 (or the Paragraph entry at the top of the dropdown). Changing a heading's level never changes its text or its inline formatting.

Headings are what the outline lists and what folding folds.

Emphasis and code

Action	How
Bold	Ctrl+B
Italic	Ctrl+I
Strikethrough	The struck-through S on the command bar
Code	The </> button

Code is one button that reads your selection. Select part of a line and you get inline code; select whole lines and you get a fenced code block. Put the cursor inside existing code and press it again to turn the code back into prose.

Inside a list, a block quote or a table you always get inline code — one span per line — because a fence cannot replace those.

Syntax highlighting

A code block written with a language on its fence (csharp, python, javascript, …) is colored by what the code means: comments muted, strings and numbers set apart, keywords emphasized. A block with no language, or a language with no grammar, is shown as plain code rather than guessed at. The fence language is set in the source panel.

Lists

The list dropdown offers three:

• Bulleted list — a bullet per item
• Numbered list — numbered from the list's start
• Checklist — tickable checkboxes

Apply one to selected paragraphs to make a list, or to an existing list to turn it back into paragraphs. Bulleted and numbered convert between each other rather than switching off, so you never have to un-list before re-listing.

Checklists work anywhere: applied to plain paragraphs they make the list and tick-box it in one go. Click a checkbox in the document to tick or untick it — that is a real edit and is saved as [x] or [ ]. Press Enter at the end of a task item and the new item gets its own empty checkbox.

A checklist shows no bullet: the checkbox is the marker. A numbered checklist keeps its numbers.

Links

Ctrl+K — or the chain icon. A prompt asks for the text and the destination URL, seeded with whatever you had selected. An empty URL inserts nothing: a link is nothing without a destination.

Because the document never shows raw [text](url), this prompt is the one place a URL is edited.

To follow a link, hold Ctrl and click it. A web address opens in your browser; a relative link to a .md file opens that file in a new tab.

Images and videos

Insert image asks for alt text and a source — a file path or a web address. A relative path is resolved against the folder your document lives in, so ![map](images/map.png) means "beside this file". An image that cannot be shown falls back to its alt text.

Insert video works exactly the same way and uses the same Markdown syntax — ![clip](clip.mp4). Whether you get a picture or a player depends on the file the source names, not on how you wrote it.

A video appears as a still plate with a play mark, and does not play until you ask it to. Once started you get a play/pause toggle, a scrubber you can click to seek, and the elapsed and total time. Starting one video pauses any other — you cannot listen to two.

Playing, pausing and scrubbing are not edits. The document is saved exactly as its author wrote it, whether the video is playing or halfway through.

Block quotes

The quote button quotes every block your selection touches, and unquotes a selected quote. It always works on whole blocks — Markdown's > applies to a whole line, so quoting half a paragraph is not something Markdown can express.

Footnotes

Put the cursor where the note belongs and press the footnote button. Two things happen:

1. A superscript number appears in your text.
2. An empty note is added to a footnote section at the end of the document — and the cursor is moved there, ready for you to type it.

Numbering follows the order the references appear, and renumbers itself as you move things around. Applied over a selection, the citation goes at the end of the selection and leaves the text alone.

Definition lists

For a glossary: select the paragraphs and press the definition list button. The first becomes the term, the rest become its definitions — the term flush against the margin, its definitions indented beneath it. Press it again on a definition list to turn it back into paragraphs.

A single selected paragraph becomes a lone term with one empty definition, which is where the cursor lands so you can type it.

Pasting

Paste adapts to what is on the clipboard:

Clipboard holds	What you get
A URL, with text selected	The selection becomes a link to that URL
An image	Saved to a file beside your document and inserted
HTML	Converted to Markdown and pasted as formatted content
A code snippet copied from an editor	A code block, indentation intact
Anything else	Pastes as it normally would

Copying out

• Copy (Ctrl+C) copies rich text, so pasting into Word, Outlook, Gmail or Slack keeps the formatting.
• Copy as Markdown (Ctrl+Shift+C) copies the source instead, for a repository or a chat window. A partial selection copies the whole blocks it touches.

Both are on the right-click menu in the document.

Next

• Tables
• Diagrams