The editor

The editor has three columns: what you can insert on the left — blocks and symbols — your document in the centre, and the properties of what is selected on the right.

Blocks

A document is a list of blocks, from top to bottom. Each block is one thing: a heading, a paragraph, a list, a quotation, an equation, a theorem, a figure, a table, a code listing, or a row of columns. Each has its own page in this documentation.

Adding a block

• From the left column. In the Blocks tab, click a block: it is inserted after the block you have selected, or at the end of the document when nothing is selected.
• With Enter. At the end of a paragraph or a heading, Enter starts a new paragraph below.
• With the / menu. In an empty paragraph or heading, type / to turn that block into another one. Then either type a few letters to filter the list by name — "the" for Theorem, "tab" for Table — or move through it with ↑ and ↓; the two combine. Enter takes the highlighted type, Esc closes the menu. A type also answers to related words: "lemma" or "proof" find Theorem, "image" finds Figure.
• By clicking below the last block. A click in the empty space under your document adds a paragraph there.

Selecting a block

Click a block to select it. A light frame marks it, and the right column shows its options. Click the empty margin of the page to select nothing: the right column then shows the document settings.

Moving a block

Hover a block and drag the handle (the six dots) that appears beside it. A line shows where the block will land; the document only changes when you drop it.

You can drag a block into a column, out of one, or into a theorem. A block that is not allowed where you drop it lands just beside that place instead — a figure dropped on a line of a proof goes after the proof.

Deleting a block

• Hover the block and click the bin beside the handle.
• Or press Backspace in an empty paragraph, heading, equation, figure caption or code listing.

The last block of a document cannot be deleted with Backspace, so there is always somewhere to type.

Turning a block into another

Type / in an empty paragraph or heading and pick a type. Text is carried over where that makes sense: a paragraph becomes a heading, a quotation or the formula of an equation. Turning a line into a Theorem wraps it: the line becomes the first line of the statement.

Lists start empty when you convert to or from them.

The symbol library

The left column has two tabs: Blocks and Symbols. The Symbols tab holds the mathematical symbols and commands, sorted by kind — relations, operators and functions, Greek letters, arrows, brackets, sets and logic, accents, and a few others.

Click a symbol and it is written where your caret is:

A line under the search field tells you which of the three applies.

The whole command is inserted, with its arguments left empty: a click on the fraction writes \frac{}{} and puts the caret in the first pair of braces. Type the numerator, press Tab to jump to the denominator, and Tab again to continue after the fraction. Shift+Tab goes back.

• Search by name ("less than", "union", "integral") or by command (\leq).
• Recently used symbols are kept at the top, on this device.
• Hover a symbol to see its name and exactly what it inserts.

Every symbol in the library works in the PDF. The same list, with examples, is on the Symbols page.

The right column

• A block is selected: its properties — the level of a heading, the width of a figure, the rules of a table. How this block works, at the bottom, opens the block's page of this documentation.
• Nothing is selected: the document's settings — language, abstract, table of contents, bibliography.
• Feedback, at the bottom, is there in both cases — see the Feedback section below.

Help

Help & shortcuts, at the bottom of the left column, opens the list of keyboard shortcuts without leaving your document, with a link to this documentation.

Feedback

Feedback, at the bottom of the right column, is how you report a bug in the editor, something that slows you down while writing, or an idea for a block. Pick what it is about, describe it in at least 20 characters, and send — Ctrl+Enter works too. Closing the form does not lose what you typed.

With your message go the type of the block you had selected, the name of your browser and of your system, the language of the document and the size of your window. Nothing of your document is sent, neither its text nor its title, so nobody reads what you write: if a problem only shows with a particular content, describe it or paste the few lines that matter.

You can send three messages an hour and ten a day. For a question about your account, look at Trouble signing in or the quick answers first.

Saving

The status at the top right reads Saved, Modified, Saving… or Save failed. Saving happens by itself about two seconds after you stop typing, and again before a compilation and before you leave the editor.

If a save fails — no connection, for example — the editor retries, and warns you if you try to close the tab or go back to your projects with changes that were not saved.

Leaving the editor

Back to projects, at the top of the left column, saves first and then returns to the dashboard.