Writing and editing
You write on the page itself, the way you would in Notion or Google Docs. This page covers text, tables, pictures, selecting and undo. The parts of a page that are more than text have a page of their own, Blocks.
Everything here works the same in both layouts, Infinite and Paginated.
Writing text
Click a paragraph, a heading, a list, a quote or a table and it opens for editing where it sits, with the cursor where you clicked. The text keeps the page's look while you type. Nothing is drawn around it; a small bar with Cancel and Save folds down underneath.
- Enter starts a new paragraph. In a list, a quote or a table it carries that on instead: a new item or a new line.
- Shift+Enter breaks the line without starting a new paragraph.
- Clicking somewhere else saves. So do Cmd+Enter and Cmd+S (Ctrl on Windows).
- Esc cancels and throws away what you typed.
- Backspace in an empty paragraph removes it and carries on at the end of whatever is above.
Clicking below the last thing on the page, or anywhere on a blank page, starts a new paragraph at the end. Selecting text to copy it doesn't open the editor, and a link still goes where it points when you click it.
The faint symbols
While you edit you'll see a few faint symbols: ## in front of a heading, ** either side of bold text, - in front of a list item. They're how a plain text file marks those things (the format is called markdown), and they're how you make them too. There's no formatting toolbar; type the symbols, or pick a heading or a list from the / menu described below. They disappear as soon as you save.
| To get | Type |
|---|---|
| A heading | # at the start of the line, ## for a smaller one, ### for smaller still |
| Bold | ** either side of the words |
| Italic | * either side of the words |
| A bulleted list | - at the start of each line |
| A numbered list | 1. at the start of each line |
| A link | [the words](https://example.com) |
| A link to another document | [[ its name ]] |
| A quote | > at the start of the line |
Adding something new
Rest the pointer in the space between two things on the page, or just above the first or below the last, and after a moment a line appears with an Add block button. Click it to choose what goes there. The list has plain text first (text, a heading, a bulleted or numbered list, a quote, a code sample, a divider, a table), then the blocks that come with Plicine, then any add-on blocks in your vault. Type to narrow the list, use the arrow keys and Enter to pick, or Esc to close it.
The quicker way is to type / at the start of an empty line. The same list opens under the slash, and what you type after it narrows the list: /tab leaves the table and the table of contents. An empty paragraph reminds you with "Write, or type / to add a block". A slash in the middle of a sentence stays a slash.
A text choice starts you off in the editor, and nothing is added until you save, so picking one and changing your mind leaves the page as it was. A divider goes in straight away. So does a block, which then opens for you to fill in.
Tables
A table opens as a grid. The cursor starts in the cell you clicked.
- Tab moves to the next cell and Shift+Tab back. Enter moves down a row and Shift+Enter up one. Past the last cell, Tab and Enter add a row.
- The arrow keys cross into the next cell once the cursor reaches the edge of the one it's in.
- Backspace at the start of an empty row removes the row.
- Point at a row or a column and a small handle appears at its edge. Its menu inserts a row above or below (a column left or right), moves it or deletes it, and a column's menu also lines its text up left, centre or right.
- To add a row between two others, point at the line between them in the margin to the left of the table. A green line appears with a +; click it. Columns work the same way in the margin above the table.
- Paste cells copied from a spreadsheet and they fill in from the cell you're in, adding rows and columns as needed.
- Cmd+Z (Ctrl+Z) undoes the last change to the table.
Save and cancel work as they do for text. Edit as markdown, in the bar under the grid, shows the table as text instead, and Edit as table switches back.
A table can be wider than the text around it: the bar under the grid has a Narrow, Normal, Wide and Full control.
Selecting, copying and deleting
Drag from the middle of one paragraph to the middle of another and everything between is selected, as in any word processor. A picture or a block on the way is selected whole. The page scrolls if you drag towards its top or bottom edge, and with something open for editing, Shift-click selects from the cursor to the click.
The selection shows the same faint symbols the editor does, so you can see exactly what you've picked up. They aren't copied:
- Cmd+C (Ctrl+C) copies the selection as it looks, so it pastes into Mail, Notes or Word as formatted text, pictures included.
- To copy the text with its symbols instead, right-click the selection and choose Copy as markdown. That's the one to use when pasting into another Plicine document or into a chat with an AI agent.
Delete or Backspace removes the selection and joins what's left, and typing or pasting replaces it. It counts as one change, so one Cmd+Z brings it all back. Esc, or a click anywhere, clears the selection.
A table or a block is never cut part-way: a selection that ends inside one takes all of it.
Pictures
Copy a picture, a screenshot or an image file and paste it into the document, or drop the file onto the page. With nothing open for editing it goes at the end of the document. Pasted while you're writing, it goes in as a picture of its own under the text, and your cursor stays where it was. The new picture then carries a Move into the text button: click it to put the picture inside the sentence at the point where you pasted. The button goes once you change that text or start editing something else.
Pictures are saved inside your vault, in a folder called assets, so they travel with your documents. Images up to 25 MB are taken: AVIF, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, SVG and WebP.
Click a picture and a small editor opens under it. It floats over what comes next, so nothing on the page jumps:
- a caption, and a description for people who use a screen reader
- left, centre or right
- how wide it is: narrow, normal, wide or full
- a height, which you can also set by dragging the grip on the picture's top or bottom edge
- how the picture fits the space: Fit inside shows the whole picture, Crop to fill fills the width and trims the rest, Stretch pulls it to the height, Original size leaves it as big as its file
- Replace… to choose another file
Changes save as you make them. There's no Done button: Esc, Enter in a field or a click elsewhere closes the editor, and Cmd+Z takes a change back while it's open. More options opens the picture's full form at the side. Image has a picture of the editor and what each control does.
Put a picture first in the document and a Make it a header button shows under it. It turns the picture into a banner that reaches the top and both sides of the page, on screen and in the PDF.
Drag a picture to move it; a line shows where it will land, and Esc puts it back. With a picture selected, Backspace or Delete takes it out of the document (the file stays in assets), and Cmd+C and Cmd+X copy and cut it, so it pastes into other apps as a picture and back into Plicine as the same picture with its caption.
Undo
Cmd+Z undoes the last change to the document and Cmd+Shift+Z redoes it (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y on Windows): something added, moved or deleted, a block's form saved, a picture pasted, text saved from the editor. While you're typing, the keys undo your typing first, then carry on back through the changes you saved before it.
The history covers the document you have open, up to 100 steps, until you close the app. A change that comes from outside, from someone else through a shared folder for instance, clears it, since stepping back past that would undo their work.
When someone else changes the same document
Plicine watches your folder and updates what you see as files change, including changes that arrive from another person through Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or iCloud. You don't need to reload.
If the part you're editing changed on someone else's computer while you were typing, your save is refused instead of overwriting their work. A message explains, with a Discard mine and reload button. Copy your text first if you want to keep it, reload, and put it back. Plicine doesn't merge two people's edits, so in a busy folder it's worth saving little and often. Sharing a folder has more on this.
For technical readers: Editing the source covers the Source view and exactly what each of these actions writes into the file.