Docs

Docs is a document editor inside the admin. Write, share with the people you work with, publish a read-only link, download or print, and send a document on as a page, a blog post or an email.

What it does

• Home lists your documents as cards or a list: Recent, Starred, Shared with me, My documents (with your folders), Templates and Trash.
• Each document opens in its own editor, with a page to write on, a formatting toolbar, an Outline of its headings, and a word count.
• Markdown shortcuts while you type: # and a space for a heading, - for a list, [] for a checklist, and more (below).
• Share with other people on the site as Viewers or Editors, and optionally email them.
• Public link: "Anyone with the link can view" gives a read-only web page for the document.
• Import .md, .html and .txt files. Download as Markdown, a web page or plain text, or print / save as PDF.
• PDF documents: add a PDF and it is kept exactly as it is - filed, shared, linked, emailed and versioned like any document, and shown in your browser's own PDF viewer.
• Send to a new page, a new blog post, or an email.
• One editor at a time: while someone is editing, everyone else sees the document read only, with their name.
• Version history with a preview of every earlier version, and restore.
• Trash: deleted documents can be restored for 30 days (a setting).

Documents are private to whoever made them until they are shared.

Getting started

1. Open Docs from the admin sidebar.
2. Click New (the + in the Docs banner at the top) and choose Blank document.
3. Start typing. Type # (a hash and a space) to make the first line a heading.
4. The document saves by itself shortly after you stop typing. Ctrl+S saves at once.
5. An untitled document takes its first line as its title when it first saves. Click the title at the top to change it.
6. Click the arrow at the top left to go back to Home.

Home

• New (the + in the banner): Blank document, From a template..., Import a file..., Upload a PDF... or New folder.... Import (the upload arrow beside it) goes straight to choosing files.
• Right-click a document, template or folder - or use its ⋮, or select it and press Shift+F10 - for everything you can do to it.
• The places on the left:
  • Recent: documents you have opened or edited.
  • Starred: click the star on a card, or in the editor, to keep a document here.
  • Shared with me: other people's documents they have shared with you.
  • My documents: your own. Your folders are listed under Folders.
  • Templates: click one to start a new document from it.
  • Trash.
• Search matches titles and text in the place you are looking at. Press / to jump to it.
• Sort by Last modified, Last opened by me, Title or Created. Switch between grid and list with the buttons on the right.
• Hide the left panel with the panel button next to the title.
• Drag files from your computer onto the list to import them.
• The Share, Email and Docs settings panels ask before closing if you have changed something and not saved or sent it. Closing the browser tab while a document has unsaved changes asks too.
• Right-click a document, or click its three-dot button, for:
  • Open
  • Open in a new tab
  • Star or Remove star
  • Rename... (owner)
  • Make a copy
  • Move to (owner)
  • Share... (owner and editors)
  • Download
  • Email...
  • Move to Trash (owner)
• A card shows Shared, Public link, or who is editing it right now. A PDF's card says PDF, with its pages and size where a written document shows its word count.

Folders

• Folders are yours alone. Documents shared with you appear under Shared with me, never in your folders.
• Right-click a folder (or use its three-dot button) for New subfolder..., Rename... and Delete folder....
• Deleting a folder never deletes documents. They, and any subfolders, move up a level.

Trash

• Move to Trash takes a document out of every list, including for the people it was shared with. Its public link stops working while it is there.
• In Trash, right-click a document for Restore or Delete for good.... Empty Trash deletes everything in it.
• Documents are deleted for good after the number of days set in Docs settings (30 by default).

The editor

The top bar holds:

• the back arrow
• the title
• where the document lives, and whether it is shared
• the save state: Unsaved changes, Saving..., Saved 14:05, or Not saved in red when a save failed
• the star
• Outline, Find and replace (Ctrl+F), Version history and Focus mode
• Share
• the three-dot menu

Toolbar

Control	Does
Text style	Normal text, Heading 1 to 4, Code block, Quote
Undo, Redo	Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y
Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough	Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+U
Highlight	Marks the selection in yellow. Click again to remove.
Inline code	Monospaced text for commands and names
Align left, Centre, Align right	The paragraph's alignment
Bulleted list, Numbered list	Tab indents a list item, Shift+Tab outdents it
Checklist	A list with tick boxes. Click a box to tick it.
Quote	An indented quotation
Link	Ctrl+K. Ctrl+click a link to open it.
Image	Choose a picture from Media, or upload one. You can also paste or drop an image into the page. It is saved to Media.
Table	Enter the size, e.g. 3x4 (columns x rows). Right-click a cell to add or delete rows and columns, or delete the table. Tab moves to the next cell.
Horizontal line	A divider
Clear formatting	Removes bold, colours and so on from the selection

Markdown shortcuts

Type these at the start of an empty line, then a space:

Type	Get
#, ##, ###, ####	Heading 1 to 4
-, * or +	Bulleted list
1. or 1)	Numbered list
[] or [ ]	Checklist
>	Quote
```	Code block

Type --- and press Enter for a horizontal line.

Outline

The Outline button shows the document's headings on the left. Click one to jump to it.

Focus mode

The Focus mode button (or Ctrl+Shift+F) hides the admin around the document. Press Escape or click the button again to leave.

The three-dot menu

• Save (Ctrl+S)
• Rename...
• Make a copy
• Move to
• Save as template...
• Download: Markdown (.md), Web page (.html), Plain text (.txt), or Print or save as PDF.... In the print dialog, choose "Save as PDF" as the printer to get a PDF.
• Print or save as PDF...
• Send to:
  • Email...
  • A new page...
  • A new blog post...
• Version history
• Move to Trash

Sharing

1. Click Share in the editor, or Share... on a document's menu on Home.
2. Under Add people, type a name and pick the person. Only people whose role includes Docs are listed.
3. Choose Viewer or Editor (or Suggester, with Docs Pro) next to their name.
4. Leave Email the people I've added ticked to tell them, and add a message if you like.
5. Click Save access.

Who	Can
Owner	Everything, including Move to, Rename, removing editors and Move to Trash
Editor	Edit, share with more people, turn the public link on or off, email the document, see Version history
Suggester (with Docs Pro)	What a Viewer can, and suggest changes for the owner or an editor to accept or reject. Without Docs Pro, a Viewer
Viewer	Read, make their own copy, download and print (not the Version history - that is the editors')

To stop sharing with someone, click the x next to their name and Save access.

Public link

1. In the Share panel, tick Anyone with the link can view.
2. Click Copy and send the address to whoever needs it.

• The address is long and unguessable. Anyone who has it can read the document, and download it as Markdown, HTML or text, without signing in.
• The page uses your site's look, and search engines are told not to list it.
• Untick the box and the address stops working at once. Ticking it again makes a new address.
• An administrator can switch public links off for the whole site in Docs settings. That stops every existing link.

One editor at a time

• When you open a document you may edit, you are its editor until you leave it.
• Anyone else who opens it sees it read only, with "name is editing" at the top. Their screen refreshes by itself to show the latest saved version.
• When the editor leaves, Edit now appears.
• The owner can click Take over. Whatever the other person had not saved is kept for them as a copy called "title (your unsaved changes)", in their My documents.
• If you open a document you are already editing in another tab, you see Open for editing in another tab. Click Edit here to move editing to this tab.
• If your computer sleeps long enough for someone else to start editing and save, your next save is not written over theirs: your version is kept as a copy called "title (your unsaved changes)" and the page shows theirs.

Never losing work

• Autosave saves shortly after you stop typing (the delay is a setting).
• Leaving a document with unsaved changes asks you to Save and leave or Stay.
• Closing the browser tab with unsaved changes asks the browser to confirm, and keeps a draft in this browser.
• Next time you open the document, you are asked whether to Put them back.

Send to

• Email...: up to 10 addresses at a time, and 50 a day per person. Send The document, in the email (a copy as it is now) or A link to read it online, which turns on the public link if it is not on already. The site's email settings are used.
• A new page...: makes a draft page at an address you choose, converted to Markdown, and offers to open it in the page editor. Your role needs permission to create pages.
• A new blog post...: makes a draft post in the Blog, when the Blog is switched on and your role may write posts.

Import

• New > Import a file..., or drag files onto Home.
• .md / .markdown:
  • Headings, lists, task lists, tables, links, images and code come across.
  • Front matter at the top is ignored.
• .html / .htm: the body is kept, scripts and styles are removed.
• .txt: each block of lines becomes a paragraph.
• A first-level heading at the very top becomes the title. Otherwise the file name is used.
• Up to 4 MB per file.
• With Docs Pro, Word documents (.docx) too - see the Docs Pro guide.
• A .pdf is not converted: it becomes a PDF document (below).

PDF documents

A PDF you add is a document in Docs that happens to be a file. Docs never changes the file.

• Add one: New > Upload a PDF..., Import, or drop it on the list - up to 20 MB. Its name becomes the title.
• Open it and the PDF shows in your browser's own viewer, with the viewer's zoom, search, print and save. There is no toolbar or outline: there is nothing to type into. The chip beside the title says PDF, its pages and size.
• The text inside the PDF is read when it is added, so search on Home finds words in it and its card shows the first lines. A scanned PDF (pictures of pages) and a password-protected one have no text to read; they are kept all the same. (On a server without the optional pdfjs-dist package, nothing inside PDFs is read - the title is still searched.)
• Everything else works as for any document: Star, Rename, Make a copy (the copy has its own file), Move to, Share (Viewers and Editors see the same viewer), the public link (a web page framing the PDF, with Download PDF), Email (the PDF is attached, or a link is sent), Trash.
• Replace the PDF... (owner and editors, in the ⋮ menu) uploads a new file. The one it had is kept in Version history, where each version shows its pages and size, can be downloaded, and can be restored.
• Download PDF is in the ⋮ menu and under Download on Home.
• A PDF is checked before it is kept: one that contains JavaScript, can start programs, has files attached inside it, holds rich media or is an XFA form is refused with the reason. Nothing is stripped out - the file is either kept whole or not at all.
• Docs Pro features that work on a document's text (Spaces, signatures, Word files, comments, suggestions, merge fields) do not apply to PDF documents yet.

Version history

1. Click the clock in the editor, or Version history on the menu.
2. Pick a version on the left to see it on the right, with when and who saved it.
3. Click Restore this version. What the document says now is kept as a version first, so a restore can itself be undone.

• A version is kept whenever a save changes the text - except that one person's saves within ten minutes of each other count as one editing session, so autosave does not fill the history.
• The oldest go once there are more than the number set in Docs settings (50 by default).
• You can restore only while you are the editor.

Templates

• Open a document and choose Save as template... from its menu.
• Start from one with New > From a template..., or click it under Templates.
• Right-click a template to delete it. Documents made from it are not affected.
• With Docs Pro, ready-made templates (letters, quotes, agreements, policies and more) are listed after your own. They are marked with their category and cannot be deleted.

Wiki pages

With the Wiki switched on, a document can be a wiki page (the owner adds it from its menu). People who edit the wiki can then edit the page here too, and see its history - but they cannot share it, give it a public link or send it, because they reach it through the wiki. While a wiki is for members only, nobody - its owner included - can share its pages with anyone new, link them publicly or send them. A page protected or locked in the Wiki shows a Protected chip and opens read only, for its owner too; hover the chip to see why.

Settings

The cog on the banner opens Docs settings. For everyone on this site needs an administrator:

• Autosave: Off, or 10 seconds to 5 minutes after you stop typing.
• Versions kept per document: 5 to 500.
• Days in Trash: 1 to 365.
• Allow public links.
• Allow emailing documents: Send to > Email. Each person can email up to 50 addresses a day.
• Who sees documents is shown but not changed here. Private, unless shared is the default. Everyone with Docs lets every Docs user read every document and administrators change them. It is set in the plugin's configuration.

Just for you (this browser):

• Show word counts on documents.

Tips

• Ctrl+S saves, Ctrl+F finds, Ctrl+K adds a link, Ctrl+Shift+F is focus mode, and / on Home jumps to search.
• Right-click inside a table for the table tools. Anywhere else, right-click gives your browser's own menu (spelling suggestions).
• A Viewer who wants to change a document can Make a copy. The copy is theirs.