How to create and format a document

Documents live at Work › Documents, and each one opens in an editor with its title at the top and the writing below. This page covers creating one, formatting it and deleting it. For what documents are for, read What are documents?.

Before you start

Creating a document needs the Create documents row on Settings › Permissions, and writing in one needs Edit documents. Members have both by default, and anyone with Edit documents can edit any document.

If Documents is missing from Work in the menu, the Documents module is switched off for your workspace. An admin turns it on in How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off.

How do you create one?

Press Create new (the + just below your workspace name), then choose Document. On a phone browser, tap Open menu, then the Create pill beside your workspace name.

Or go to Work › Documents and press New document. Pressed inside a folder, it files the new document in that folder; see How to file documents in folders.

Either way the new document opens in the editor. Click the title, where the placeholder reads Untitled, and type a name of up to 300 characters. Then click into the body below, which reads "Type / for commands, @ to mention…", and start writing.

The title is what everyone scans the list by, so a specific one earns its keep. "Spring shoot brief: performance polos" beats "Shoot notes".

How does saving work?

The document saves about a second after you stop typing. A line above the title shows where it stands: Saving…, then Saved just now (later Saved 4m ago), or Save failed if it could not save.

Wait for Saved before you close the tab, so your last few words are kept.

If someone else saved the same document while you had it open, the status line says your text was not saved because the document was edited elsewhere, and the page stops saving. Copy anything you wrote, reload the page, and paste it back into their latest version.

What are the three ways to format?

The slash menu and the toolbar both set the kind of block, such as a heading or a list. The toolbar also holds the marks that style words, such as bold. Markdown shortcuts do both as you type.

The slash menu is the one to learn first. Type / at the start of a line or after a space, and a menu appears with Normal Text, Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Bulleted list, Numbered list, To-do list, Quote, Code block, Divider and Image. Keep typing to narrow it, for example /quo for Quote.

The toolbar is the row of icons above the body. From left to right they are:

• Normal text, Heading 1, Heading 2 and Heading 3.
• Bold, Italic, Underline and Strikethrough.
• Inline code, and Link, which asks for a Link URL. Clear the address and confirm to take a link off.
• Bulleted list, Numbered list and To-do list.
• Quote, Code block and Divider.
• Image.

Markdown shortcuts are faster once they are in your fingers. Typing these at the start of a line converts it as you go:

• # then a space gives you a Heading 1, ## a Heading 2 and ### a Heading 3.
• - then a space starts a bulleted list.
• 1. then a space starts a numbered list.
• [ ] then a space starts a to-do list.
• > then a space makes a quote.
• Three backticks then a space start a code block, and three hyphens make a divider.
• Two asterisks either side of a word make it bold, one makes it italic, two tildes strike it through, and backticks make it inline code.

The slash menu shows each block's shortcut beside its name, so you can learn them as you go.

What is the to-do list for?

Checkboxes inside the writing, for a checklist that belongs to the document rather than to a person.

A packing checklist inside a shoot brief is a to-do list. Somebody's job to pack the van is a task, because it has an owner and a date and it belongs in somebody's list. See What are tasks?.

How do you add an image?

Three ways: Image in the slash menu, the Image button at the end of the toolbar, or pasting an image straight into the body. The image sits in the document where your cursor was.

Keep each image to 10 MB or smaller. Use images for the things that are genuinely visual: a colourway, a layout, a photograph of a fault. A document full of screenshots is harder to search than a document full of sentences.

How do you tag something?

Type @ anywhere in the body and pick from the menu. You can tag people, other documents, tasks, records of your own Objects, planned items, products, collections, customers, channels and dates.

Tagging a task, a document, a planned item or a channel also links the document to it, so it shows from that side too. That is covered in How to find a document and link it to your work.

Can a document be created for you?

Yes, when work starts. A planned item on a project has a switch called Create a document when promoted to a task, which is on for every new planned item.

When the planned item becomes a task, a document named after the task is created and linked to it. That is how every blog post in a campaign arrives with somewhere to write it. See How to plan what goes out and when.

How do you delete one?

Go to Work › Documents, hover the document's row and open its ⋯ menu, then choose Delete. The confirmation reads "This can't be undone from here", so make sure before you confirm.

Deleting takes the document out of the list for everybody, and links to it stop opening it. It needs the Delete documents row on Settings › Permissions, which leads have by default.