Getting started

This page takes you from nothing to a PDF of something you wrote, in about ten minutes. There's no terminal involved. If you're here to make blocks or themes, start at Build for Plicine instead.

Get the app

Plicine is in a closed beta, on macOS and Windows. Ask to join with the form at the foot of plicine.com, or write to beta@plicine.com; once you're in, you get an installer. Plicine is free to use, at home and at work.

Beta builds aren't signed with Apple or Microsoft yet, so your computer stops you once before it lets the app open.

On a Mac, a warning says Apple couldn't check the app. Click Done, open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, scroll down to the Security section and click Open Anyway.
On Windows, a blue box says "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then Run anyway.

You'll be asked again for each new build you install.

Open a folder

Plicine keeps your documents in an ordinary folder on your computer, and calls that folder a vault. Make a new, empty folder wherever you like. If you want your documents on your other devices, or shared with other people, make it inside Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or iCloud.

Open Plicine, click Open a vault… and pick the folder. That's all the setting up there is. From then on Plicine reopens the same folder when it starts, and File > Open Vault… switches to another.

If you already keep notes as plain text files (markdown), in Obsidian for instance, open that folder instead and Plicine reads the files as they are.

The first time it runs, Plicine also offers to add a plicine command to your terminal. That's for people who script things. If that isn't you, Not now is the right answer, and the offer doesn't come back.

Write a page

The sidebar on the left lists your documents. A new folder has none, so it says "No markdown files in this folder yet." Move the pointer over the sidebar, click the three dots next to the vault's name and choose New document. Type a name, "Reading list" or "Team handbook", and press Enter. The document opens with that name as its heading.

Click under the heading and type. You're writing on the page itself, as you would in Notion or Google Docs. Enter starts a new paragraph. Clicking somewhere else saves what you wrote, and Esc throws it away. To change something later, click it and it opens for editing where it sits.

What you write is saved as a plain text file (markdown) in your folder, one file for each document. You never have to look at those files, but they're yours: any other app can read them, and so can an AI agent you point at the folder.

Add something that's more than text

On an empty line, type /. A list opens with headings, lists and tables, and below them the blocks that come with Plicine: a table of contents, an image, a callout (a tinted box for a note or a warning), a card, columns. Pick one. A card is written straight on the page, like any other text. The others open a form beside the page, and the page shows the result as you fill it in.

Other blocks are add-ons that you, a colleague or an agent can make: a priced table that does its own sums, a project timeline, a dashboard. They travel inside the folder with your documents, so everyone who opens the folder has them.

An add-on block is a small program, which is why Plicine asks before running one it hasn't seen on this computer. A panel above the document says "This document wants to run a block" and names it. Choose Run for the ones you expect to see. A block you've approved still runs in a sealed box (a sandbox) with no access to your files, and it only gets the internet or saved data if the panel said so. Why a block asks before it runs explains the rest.

Send it as a PDF

Click Paginated at the top of the window to see your document laid out in pages, exactly as the PDF will be. Infinite goes back to one continuous page. Both are the same document and you can write in either.

Click Export PDF. The PDF is saved in your Downloads folder and opens straight away. If your computer has no Chrome, Edge or Brave on it, the first export downloads a small renderer of its own (about 100 MB, once) and tells you while it does.

PDFs end with one line saying "Made with Plicine". It's free to turn off, in Vault settings under the same three dots as New document. Exporting PDFs covers page sizes, covers and what to do when a PDF looks wrong.

There's no Share button, because sharing is something your folder already does. Put the folder in Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or iCloud, share it the way you'd share any folder there, and anyone with Plicine opens it as you did. Each person is asked about add-on blocks on their own computer, even if you've already said yes on yours. Sharing a folder covers what happens when two people change the same document.

Where to go next

Finding your way around covers the sidebar, folders and search.
Writing and editing is the full tour of writing on the page: text, tables, pictures and undo.
Blocks is about the parts of a page that are more than text.
Templates is for documents you send again and again with a few blanks changed.
Under the hood is where the technical side starts: how a page is kept as a text file, and the plicine command.