How-to

Keys are written as on Windows and Linux. On a Mac, press ⌘ where it says Ctrl and ⌥ where it says Alt.

Write a document with others

Open Documents → New document, name it, and pick a format (or leave it as Document).
Type. Everyone with write access sees your changes and cursor live.
Select text and click the comment button to leave feedback anchored to it. Toggle the feedback panel with the speech-bubble icon.
Share (owner only) to grant a friend or a whole group read or write access. Group shares post a card in that group's chat.
Version history shows autosaved snapshots and any you name yourself. Preview or restore any of them.

Set up the page and print

In a Document, open the Layout tab of the ribbon for margins, paper, orientation and columns, or the sliders button for everything: gutter, facing pages, headers and footers, page numbers. Margins ▸ Custom margins… opens that panel at Margins: type a figure (1.1, say) or step by quarter inches with − and +.
For a header or footer, type in its left, center or right slot and use Add a field for the page number, page count, title, author or date. Tick Different first page to leave a title page clean.
Press the eye button to preview every page as it will print.
Ctrl+P prints. Export saves the same pages as a PDF, or the document as Word.

To make the page larger or smaller while you write, click the percentage beside the word count, or hold Ctrl and turn the wheel. Page width and Whole page fit it to the window.

A new Document starts on the paper of where you are (US Letter or A4). Change it with the paper list on the Layout tab and the document keeps your choice for everyone.

To write in another language, open the sliders button, go to Details and set the language. Spelling is then checked in that language and quote marks are typed in its style.

Export a PDF

Export ▸ Export PDF… opens the choices. They are remembered on this device.

Pictures. Screen keeps the file small enough to send. Print keeps pictures sharp on paper. Original puts each picture in as the file it is, which can make a large PDF.
Tags for screen readers writes headings, lists, tables and picture descriptions into the file, so it can be read aloud. Give each picture a description first (select it, then Picture ▸ Description). The export says how many have none.
Archive copy (PDF/A) makes a file meant to open the same way in many years. Choose it for a file you will keep or hand to an archive.
Keep an editable copy inside puts the document itself into the PDF. Import that PDF later and you get the document back with its styles and pictures. Anyone you send the PDF to can do the same, so leave it off for a file that is only meant to be read.
Details holds the subject, the keywords and the language. They are kept with the document.
Create PDF, then Save….

To get a document back out of its PDF, use Documents → Import and pick the PDF. If it holds its document you are asked whether to open the document or to read the pages as text.

For a book, Export ▸ Paperback PDF (print-ready)… has two choices of its own for a printer that asks for them: PDF/X-1a for a printer and With bleed.

Format a document

Anything the ribbon does can also be asked for by name. Press Ctrl+K (Ctrl+K), type a word or two of what you want ("checklist", "margins", "zoom page width") and press Enter. Ctrl+/ lists every key.

Select words: a small menu appears above them with bold, italic, underline, color, highlight, link and comment. The ribbon's Home tab has those and the font, size and style. The ⋯ button beside them has the rest (strikethrough, sub- and superscript, change case, clear formatting). With nothing selected, a choice applies to what you type next.
For a whole paragraph: alignment, line spacing and the indent buttons are in the ribbon, and shading and borders are under the ⋯ beside them. Exact indents (a hanging indent, a first line), exactly/at least line heights and keep with next are in the inspector's Text tab (the sliders button).
Use styles for anything you'll do twice. Pick Title, Heading 1 or Caption from the styles button. To change how every heading looks, open the styles button and choose Modify Heading 1…, or format one heading by hand and choose Update Heading 1 to match selection. New style from selection… saves a look under a name of your own.
To copy formatting from one place to another: put the caret in the text that has it, choose ⋯ ▸ Copy formatting to other text, then select the text to give it to.
Ctrl+Shift+9 (or the checklist button) starts a checklist. Click a box to tick it.

Let the app fix slips as you type

Open Settings ▸ Writing and tick Correct as I type. It is on to begin with on a computer.
Untick any kind of correction you do not want. Each has its own line.
Your corrections… shows every word that is changed and what it becomes. Add your own (a shortening you always type, say), remove any you disagree with, and list words to leave exactly as typed.
When it changes something you meant, press Backspace straight away, or Undo once. The correction is taken back and your typing stays.

Find your way around a long document

Go to a page or a heading: click the page count beside the word count. Type 12, +2, or a few words of a heading, and press Enter.
Go back to where you were writing: press Shift+F5. Press it again for the place before.
Move a section: open the outline, press Reorder, and use the arrows beside a heading. Up and down move it past its neighbors. Left and right change its level.
Work on one chapter at a time: open the outline and press the button at the end of the chapter's row. The bar over the page steps to the chapters either side. Show everything ends it.
See why text looks the way it does: open the sliders panel. The top of its Text tab names the style, then what the paragraph and the words have of their own, with a Clear beside each.

Plan a book's story

Open the document and press the Plan button in the header (or Ctrl+Alt+P). The panel beside the text shows the chapter you are in. Press Open the board to see them all.
Press Plot line and name the first one (Main plot is filled in). Add more for subplots or for each character's thread.
Press + in a cell to add a card to that chapter and plot line. Write its title and what happens, and choose who is in it with Cast. Done keeps it.
Drag cards to move them. On a phone or a tablet, hold a card still for a moment before you drag it. Ideas with no chapter yet go under the board with Planning note.
No chapters yet? Press Add the first chapter, or a column's ⋯ and Add a chapter after. The chapter is written into the text.
On Cast and world, add the people, places and things of the story, with the other names they go by. Each shows the chapters it appears in. Step through the mentions goes to each one in the text.
On Timeline, add events in the order they happen and choose the chapter that tells each. A flashback is marked where the book's order crosses the story's.

Add a table, a footnote or a table of contents

A table: Insert ▸ Table and pick a size. Tab moves from cell to cell. With the caret in the table, the Table tab has rows, columns, merge, header row, lines and shading. A long row is cut across pages where the page ends.
A footnote: put the caret where the reference goes and choose Insert ▸ Footnote (or Endnote). Write the note in the box that opens, then press Enter to go back to the text. Click a note's number to read or change it, or scroll to the end of the document, where all its footnotes and endnotes are listed and can be changed in place.
A table of contents: Insert ▸ Contents, usually near the top. It lists Heading 1–3 and updates as you write. Page numbers show in the preview, in print and in the PDF.
A landscape page, or a part in two columns: put the caret in the paragraph where it should start, choose Layout ▸ Section ▸ Start a new section, then set that section's orientation or columns. Start another section where it should end.

Suggest changes instead of making them

On the ribbon's Review tab, set the mode to Suggesting (in the other formats: open Feedback and choose Changes, where the same switch is). A Suggesting tag stays on the ribbon while it is on.
Edit as usual. What you add is underlined in your color, what you delete is struck through and stays in place, and a paragraph you split or join shows a ¶ where the break is. Formatting (bold, styles, lists) still changes directly.
To decide: put the caret in a change and press Accept or Reject on the Review tab (they move on to the next change), or open Changes for the whole list (who, when and what) with the same two buttons on each, Accept all and Reject all, and a button to comment on a change.
Viewing shows the text as it would read with everything accepted and locks it. Switch back to Editing or Suggesting to go on.

The mode is your own: someone else can be editing the same document while you suggest. It is remembered for that document on that device, so you don't start editing by accident next time. Printing, PDFs and the word count use the text with the suggestions accepted. Export Word carries them as Word's tracked changes, and Export Word (clean copy) leaves them out. Taking back your own suggestion (Backspace over what you just typed) simply removes it.

Listen to a document

Put the caret where to start and choose Read aloud (on the Review tab, or the speaker button in the header for the other formats). The sentence being read is highlighted. The bar that opens has pause, back and on a sentence, stop, speed and (where your system has more than one) a voice. It uses the voices installed on your device.

Check a document before you send it

Choose Check on the Review tab, the check button in the header, or press F7. The panel reads the whole text and lists what it found under headings such as Punctuation, Left in the text and Tidy up, with a count beside each.

Open a finding to see every place it occurs. Click a place to select it in the text. Fix changes that place. Fix all changes every place at once and one undo brings them all back. Skip sets a place aside. It stays aside for you and your co-writers until the words there change. Set aside does the same for a whole finding: just for now, in this document, or in all your documents.

Some findings are a thing done two ways, such as straight and curly quote marks. The panel shows how often each is used and takes the commoner one to be meant. Choose the other if that is the one you want. The places written the other way are then the ones listed.

If you are in Suggesting mode, each fix is made as a suggestion that you or your co-writer can accept or reject. In Viewing mode and in a document you can only read, the findings are listed without Fix.

See how a draft reads

Open Check and choose the Reports tab. It is there in a manuscript and in a Document.

Start with Chapter by chapter in a book. Each row is a chapter. A number is underlined where that chapter stands well apart from the rest: far longer, almost no speech, sentences much longer than usual. Choose a row and you are taken to that chapter, and every other report is now about it. Whole book at the top takes you back.

Sentences draws every sentence as a bar. A flat stretch is a run of sentences of one length. Click a bar to go to its sentence. Below the chart are the patterns it found, such as four sentences in a row that begin with "She". Choose one and step through its places with the arrows at the foot of the panel.

Repeats lists words that come again within a few lines, and phrases you lean on. If a word is meant, open the menu beside it and choose This is fine. Watch this word does the opposite: the word is pointed out every time, in the Checks tab.

Word choice and Dialogue read English. Each lists what it found by kind and then by word. Where a row has Fix, the change is plain enough to make for you: "nodded his head" becomes "nodded", and "Go." she said becomes "Go," she said. In a novel the Word choice report leaves speech alone. Tick Look inside quote marks too to include it.

Pace draws the book as a band. Tall blue bars are stretches with almost no speech and long sentences or paragraphs. A long run of them is listed below with what was measured, such as "looks back 14 times". Click the band to go to that stretch. A quiet stretch can be exactly right: this only shows you where they are.

To look at one passage only, select it in the text and choose Selection.

Keep a house style

Open Check and choose the Rules tab. The switch at the top picks whose rules you are looking at.

This document: rules kept with the document. Everyone who writes it sees the same ones, and a copy of the document keeps them.
All my documents: your own rules, kept on this device and used in every document you open. You can also reach them from Settings ▸ Writing ▸ Your rules for Check.

Spell in chooses the English the text is held to: American, British, British with -ize, Canadian or Australian. With none chosen the text is only held to whichever it mostly uses, and the panel asks you which you meant when it finds both.

In either place you can untick a check you do not want, and add words:

Write one for another: type what to find and what to write. Each place it is found gets a Fix.
Words to look at: a word you want pointed out, with a note to yourself if you like. Nothing is changed for you.
Never flag: a word or phrase no check should raise.

In a shared document, tick Use only this document's rules when the whole team should see one list. Copy my rules into this document puts your own words into the document's rules for everyone.

Save to a file writes the rules you are looking at to a file. Add from a file on another device, or in another document, brings them in.

Compare two versions

With an earlier version: History, open a version, Compare with now.
With a Word file: Review tab ▸ Compare, and pick the .docx.

The two are shown side by side with the paragraphs lined up: what was taken out is marked on the left and what was put in on the right. The arrows step through the differences. Whole text shows the unchanged paragraphs too, One column puts both versions in one, and the swap button turns the sides round. Comparing doesn't change anything.

Older versions of the app can't open a document once it uses color, highlight, a font or size on part of a paragraph, indents, borders, checklists, tables, footnotes, a table of contents, sections or suggested changes. They're asked to update, and nothing is lost. If your server hasn't been updated yet those controls don't appear for its documents, so update the server first (see Setup).

See the printed pages while you write

Press the page-view button (the split sheet in the header). The sheet is divided into the pages the PDF will have: the same text on each, the same count, with the break falling inside a paragraph or between the rows of a table when that is where the page turns. It keeps up as you type. The gaps between the pages stay where they are and the text moves across them. The lines themselves are the screen's. For the page exactly as printed, line for line, open Preview (the eye). If page view misbehaves on your device, Settings ▸ Writing ▸ Page view shows the pages as they print switches to the simpler view.

Give a book its cover

Open a manuscript, press the book button and choose Cover.

Pictures. Choose a JPEG or a PNG for the front cover. It is the ebook's cover and the front of the paperback. A tall picture of 1,600 × 2,560 pixels suits the ebook stores. For the paperback, add a back and a spine too, or one picture of the whole cover. A printed cover is one sheet with the back, the spine and the front side by side, and the tab says what that sheet measures for your trim size, paper and page count.
Open the cover editor. The sheet is drawn as it prints. Use the tabs at the top to look at the whole cover, the back, the spine or the front. Guides shows what the printer trims off, the margin to keep words out of, where the spine folds and where the barcode goes.
Add words. Start with the book's title and author puts the title, the author, a spine line and the blurb in their usual places. Click any of them to change what it says, its font, size and color. Drag it where it belongs and pull its side handles to set its width.
Place a picture. Click a part of the cover that has no words on it. You can choose its picture or its paper color there, make the picture larger, and drag it to choose which part shows.
Save. Make the cover builds the PDF to upload to the printer. Make a template builds a PDF at the exact size with the guides on it, for artwork you make in a drawing program.

Finish the text before the cover. The spine's width depends on the page count, and the editor warns you when it has changed since the artwork went in. Books under 80 pages have a spine too narrow for words. The sizes are Amazon KDP's. Another printer may ask for different ones, so check their template.

Every font the editor offers is open-licensed and free to use on a book you sell.

Show a book's cover and blurb in your lists

A book's card in Documents shows its cover, its description and its tags to you and to everyone it is shared with.

Open the manuscript, press the book button and choose Book.
Write the Description. It is the blurb on the card and in the ebook's details.
Add Tags with commas between them, such as Vampires, Dark romance. Up to twelve show on the card.
Give the book a front cover on the Cover tab. The card shows the front as you designed it a moment after you change it.

A Document's card shows its subject and keywords, set under Details in its settings.

Give a book's chapters their look

Open a manuscript, press the book button and choose Design.

Your own scene break. Under Scene breaks, choose Your own picture and a JPEG or a PNG (blood drops, a pair of fangs). A picture on white or on a see-through ground works best. Height sets how tall it prints. For characters of your own instead, choose Ornament, then Your own…, and type up to 12.
Art behind each chapter's first page. Under Chapter art, choose a picture for Behind the first page. The chapter's heading and its first lines are printed over it. Set Words on a picture to Light for dark art.
A picture facing each chapter. Choose one for Facing the first page. It fills the left-hand page and the chapter opens on the right.
One chapter different. Under the pictures, Give a chapter its own and pick the chapter. Set its Behind or Facing to its own picture or to none. Only the chapters that differ are listed. The × beside one gives it the book's pictures again.
What goes under each chapter's title. Under Chapter openings, Under the title takes a typed ornament, Your own… characters, or Same as the scene breaks, which follows the scene breaks' ornament or picture as you change it.

A whole page wants a picture of 300 pixels an inch: for a 6 × 9 in book, 2,775 pixels tall. When you export the paperback for a printer, tick With bleed so the art runs to the edge of the paper.

Place and frame a picture

Click a picture to select it. The Picture tab opens.

Move it. Drag the handle on its top left corner to where it should go. A line shows the place between two blocks. Up and Down on the tab, or Alt+↑ and Alt+↓, move it one block at a time.
Set it left, center or right with the Position buttons.
Frame it. Border picks a color, and the box beside it the thickness. Corners rounds them, all the way to a circle.
Size it by dragging a corner, or type inches under Size.
Caption puts a line of text under it. Description says what it shows for someone who can't see it.

Bring in a Word document

Documents → Import, pick the .docx. Headings and styles, lists and checklists, tables, footnotes, a table of contents, links, pictures, fonts, colors, spacing, indents, sections and the page setup come across, and Word's tracked changes arrive as suggested changes you can accept or reject (see above). A note after the import says what couldn't be kept (text boxes, equations, drawn shapes). A table laid out wider than its page is made to fit, and a cell's own borders and a picture's outline and rounded corners are kept. A file that looks like a book comes in as a Manuscript with its chapters found.

Bring in a PDF

Documents → Import, pick the PDF. What comes back is a document you can edit, not a picture of the pages.

Text comes back as paragraphs, headings, lists and tables, with links, footnotes and pictures where they stood. Two columns are read down one and then down the other.
The page comes with it: paper, margins, columns, the font and size of the text, and the running head and page numbers as the document's header and footer.
A password is asked for if the file has one.
A scan holds pictures of pages and no text. You are asked whether to Read the text or Keep as pictures. Reading is done on this device by the system's own recognizer (Mac, iPhone and iPad), a page at a time, and is worth a read through afterwards.
A long file shows how far it is. Cancel stops it and nothing is made.

A note after the import says what was left out. A PDF made by a layout program for print will come back less tidy than one made from a word processor, and a PDF with tags (Word and Google Docs write them when asked to) comes back best of all.

Edit a PDF

Documents → Import, pick the PDF, and choose Edit this PDF. (The other choice, Convert to a document, makes a document of what it says. See above.)

Read and find. Scroll the pages, zoom with the two magnifier buttons, and type in Find in this PDF. Enter goes to the next match.
Pages. The list on the left is the pages. Click one to pick it. Shift and Ctrl pick several. Drag to move them, or use the buttons above the list to turn, move, copy, add and take out pages. Save these pages as a PDF of their own splits them out.
Mark up. Select text on a page and press Highlight, or the underline or strike through buttons beside it. Note, Draw, Box, Arrow and Type each make their mark where you click or drag. Back in Read, click a mark to move it, change its words or take it off.
Fill a form. Its fields are shaded on the page. Type in them and tick them there.
Sign. Press Sign, draw your signature (or use a picture of it), then click the page where it goes. Make part of the page fixes signatures and typed words in place so they can no longer be moved.
Change text (Beta). Click a piece of the page's own text and retype it. A PDF holds only the letters it uses, so a letter it lacks is set in a standard font and you are told. Check the result.
Undo and Redo are in the header, and Ctrl+Z works.
Save. Save a copy writes the PDF as it now is to a file you choose. Your original is not touched. In the apps, Keep on this device puts it in Documents so you can come back to it, and Save then saves it in place.

A PDF with a password asks for it. If whoever made it does not allow changes, the tools for those changes are off. If it is signed with a certificate you are warned first, since any change breaks that signature.

Keep what's on this device in order

Folders: Documents → the folder-plus button → name it and choose On this device (with no server connected there is nothing to choose). Open a document's ⋯ menu → Move to folder… to put it in one, or select several and press Move. Deleting a folder never deletes what's in it.
Search: type in the search field. Documents on this device are found by any word in them, with the passage shown on the card. The same field in Canvas finds boards by name and by the words on them.
Publish: a document's or board's ⋯ menu → Publish to a server… puts a copy on the server you're connected to (a board asks which group). Not connected? It opens the connect sheet, and carries on once you are. The original stays on this device and the two don't sync afterwards. To share the document with another group later, choose Publish to a server… again: it opens on the copy already there and shares that one. Keep only the server copy leaves just the one on the server.
Your picture: Settings → Profile → Choose a picture. With no server connected this is the profile on this device. When connected, use Apply to this server to copy it there.

Run a writing session

Open Sessions, pick the channel, + New session, name it.
+ Add a prompt: write it with the formatting toolbar, choose a Timer (or Another length for your own number of minutes), Add prompt.
Press Start when everyone's ready. Members write on their own private page, and the side chat stays open the whole time.
To write with nothing else on screen, press the arrows button at the end of the bar above your page. Escape brings the session back.
Stop early if you like, or let the timer end the prompt. Everyone's writing is then shown. Add more prompts or End session.
To keep what you wrote, press Save as a document on your piece. It becomes a Document of your own. Copy takes any piece as plain text.
To pick a winner, everyone presses Vote on the piece they liked best. Press it again to take the vote back. When everyone has voted, whoever started the prompt presses Close voting, and each piece shows how many votes it got.

Invite people to a group

Group name header → Invite (admins only) → share the temporary code. They redeem it from the + button in the chat sidebar.

Add a custom emote

Composer → smiley button → + Add emote (admins only) → upload an image and name it. Everyone can then type :name:.

Join voice

Click a channel under VOICE in the chat sidebar and grant microphone access. Mute and leave from the pill in the status bar, which stays with you in every app.

While in a voice channel, use the camera button in the status-bar pill (grant camera access the first time). The video panel opens when someone's video appears. Drag it anywhere, resize from the corner, and it stays up while you work in other apps. The screen-share button appears on platforms that support capture (Windows/Linux). Everyone, including macOS, can watch.

Keep notes in folders

In Notes, press the folder button beside + and name the folder. Click a folder to open or close it.
A folder's ⋯ menu makes a note or another folder inside it, renames it or deletes it. New notes go in the folder you last picked.
To move a note, open it and choose another folder beside its title.

Links keep working when notes move. The folders are real folders in the vault, so Obsidian shows them too.

Notes → open the note → Share → pick a friend. They get a card in your DM with a Save to vault button.

Use the canvas

Click tools in the bottom bar to place stickies / text / frames.
Paste an image or a URL directly onto the board.
Shift-click (or shift-drag on empty space) to select several elements.
Select a frame to change its color. Select a sticky or text element for formatting (bold/italic/underline, size, alignment, bullets).
Select a connector to change its anchors, dash style, and end decorations.
Toggle snap to grid in the toolbar for evenly aligned elements.
From a document, use Send to canvas to place a live excerpt card on one of the group's boards.

Force-logout a device

Settings → Devices shows every login for your account, and you can revoke any of them. Server admins can force-logout any user from the Admin tab.

Choose who can make an account on your server

A new server takes its first account (yours, as its admin) and then anyone who can reach it. To change that, open Settings → Admin → New accounts and choose:

Anyone who can reach this server, as at first.
Only someone with an invite code. Set how many accounts a code may make and for how many days, then Make an invite code. It is copied for you to send. Revoke one there at any time.
No one.

People see the choice on the sign-in form: no Create account tab when the server takes no one, and a field for the code when it asks for one.

Reset a forgotten password

There's no email on a self-hosted server, so recovery goes through your server admin:

Ask a server admin to open Settings → Admin and generate a one-time reset code for your account.
On the server's sign-in form, choose Forgot password, enter your username, the code, and a new password.
This revokes every existing session for your account, so you'll need to log back in everywhere.