Outline basics
A note is one line in an outline, and most of your typing happens in four keys. Return makes a note, Tab nests it, Shift-Tab moves it back up, and Backspace at the start joins it to the note above.
- New note
- Return at the end of a note
- Nest or unnest
- Tab and ⇧ Tab, or Note ▸ Indent Note (
⌥⌘]) and Outdent Note (⌥⌘[) - Line break inside a note
- ⇧ Return
- Collapse or expand
- ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ in the outline
Make notes and split them
New note below
With the caret at the end of a note, press Return. A new note appears below at the same depth, and the caret moves into it.
Split in the middle
With the caret inside the text, press Return. The text after the caret moves into the new note. Tags and fields stay with the note you split. Child notes stay under it too.
Replace a selection
Select some text and press Return. The selected text is removed and the note splits at that place. One Undo restores the text.
Blank note above
With the caret at the very start of a note that has text, press Return. A blank note appears above, and the caret stays in the original note.
Nest and unnest notes
Tab moves the note under the note directly above it, as its last child. Shift-Tab moves it up one level, to sit just after its former parent. In a plain note, these keys change nesting. In a code note, they type a tab, so use Note ▸ Indent Note (⌥⌘]) and Outdent Note (⌥⌘[) instead.
A note at the top of a page cannot be outdented out of that page, and Tab does nothing when the note above is a reference, because a reference shows no children.
Join a note to the one above
With the caret at the start of a note, press Backspace. The note joins the note above it. A plain note with nothing else on it disappears. A note with tags, fields, references or links goes to Trash instead, so nothing it holds is lost. The note above must be an ordinary note: Backspace does nothing when the note above is a code block.
Line breaks and paragraphs in a note
In an ordinary note, Return always starts a new note. To keep two lines inside one note, press ⇧ Return where the line should break. The break stays inside that note.
Collapse and expand
A note with children shows a chevron when you point at its row. Click the chevron to collapse or expand it. A collapsed note's bullet shows a halo, so you can see that something is hidden under it.
- ⌘↓
- Expand the note being edited or selected
- ⌘↑
- Collapse it
- ⌥⌘↓
- Expand everything inside it
- ⌥⌘↑
- Collapse everything inside it
Markdown as you type
With Convert Markdown as you type on, which is the default, a few typed marks turn into what they mean as you type. Settings ▸ Editor ▸ Convert Markdown as you type turns them off.
| Type | Then press Space | Result |
|---|---|---|
# | Space | Heading 1 (## and ### for Heading 2 and 3) |
-, * or + | Space | Nothing else changes: the bullet is dropped, since every note already has one |
[ ] or [x] | Space | A checkbox, open or checked |
See Headings, quotes, dividers and lists and Checkboxes and to-dos.
Start a note without a place yet
Press ⌘N to open a draft row after the current note. The row says where the note will go, as “New note in ‹page›”. Nothing exists until you type. Press Escape, or click away from an untouched draft, and it disappears with nothing left behind. Clicking below the last row of a page starts a draft at the end.
Combine it
- Move several notesPress Esc to select the note you are editing, then extend the selection with ⇧ ↓. Indent, Outdent and Move Up or Down then work on all of them when they are consecutive siblings.
- Checkboxes on new notesPress Return at the end of a to-do and the next note is an unchecked to-do too.
- Insert a heading or a listType
/at the caret to open the Insert command list, with headings, dates, tables and more. - Undo a split or a joinOne Undo takes back a split, a join or an indent. Edit shows the name of the step.