Write and format

Write in a note and style the text — with the editor bar, the keyboard, or Markdown as you type.

Style text

Select the words. A bar appears over them with bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, highlight and the two colors. Or press ⌘B, ⌘I or ⌘U.

Everything else about how text is set is in Aa (Text Style) in the toolbar: the same character styles with a tick on what the selection has, highlight and text color, the paragraph's style, lists, alignment, indentation and text size. The same styles are in the Format menu.

Select the words, then use the editor bar above the note:

Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough — the buttons in the editor bar, or ⌘B, ⌘I and ⌘U.
Highlight and text color — the two color swatches in the bar.
Alignment and text size — the Aa menu.

The Aa menu is long. Scroll it to reach Decrease Indent or the text sizes; it stays where you scroll it.

Insert things with ⊕ and the paperclip

＋ (Insert) in the toolbar holds everything that goes into a note: File or Picture…, Link… and Link to Note…, then Table…, Callout and Separator.

The ⊕ button in the editor bar inserts what you make inside the note: Table, Callout, Link to Note and Separator. The paperclip holds what comes from outside: links and files, scans, sketches and photos.

Markdown as you type

Type a Markdown marker and it turns into what it stands for. At the start of a line, the space after the marker converts it:

# to ##### — Heading 1 to Heading 5
- , * or + — a bullet
1. or 1) — numbering
[] , [ ] or - [ ] — an empty checkbox
[x] — a checkbox already ticked
> — a quote

Two convert on the Return that leaves the line, because neither is finished until then:

a row of three or more -, * or _ — a divider
a run of | rows — a table, on the Return after the last row. The table needs a row of dashes under its header, such as | - | - |.

Around a word, the closing characters (or the space right after them) convert it:

**bold** or __bold__ — bold
*italic* or _italic_ — italic
~~struck~~ — struck through
a word between single backticks — code
[label](url) — a link

Each conversion is one step back with ⌘Z.

Tip: Settings ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts lists every marker and every key the app answers to. It is a reference page; nothing on it can be changed.

Markdown on paste

Plain text that you paste or drag in from another app is read as Markdown: **bold** arrives bold and ## arrives as a heading. Text that comes with formatting of its own keeps that formatting, asterisks included. To paste just the plain text underneath, read as Markdown, press ⌘⇧V.

Give a note a cover and an icon

A note can wear a cover above its title: its own picture, or a band in its notebook's color. Open Info and find Cover:

Show Cover puts the band above this note's title, or takes it away.
Icon puts one emoji above the title. On iPhone and iPad, tap it and pick an emoji on the emoji keyboard. On the Mac, type it into the field, or click the smiley beside it to open Emoji & Symbols.

You can also right-click the cover or the icon — or touch and hold it on iPhone and iPad — to add, change or remove the icon, or to hide the cover.

Write in Focus

Put the window in full screen — press ⌃⌘F, or click the green button. The sidebar, the note list and Info go away, and the note stands alone in the middle of the screen, with its word count at the bottom. Move the pointer to the top of the screen to reach the toolbar. Leave full screen the same way to get everything back as it was.

Count words, print, undo

Word and character count — in the note's Info panel.
Print — ⌘P, or on the Mac Share in the toolbar, which also exports the note as PDF or Markdown.
Undo and redo — ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z, or Edit ▸ Undo.
Saving — automatic. There is nothing to save by hand.

Press ⌃⌘O to open the note in its own window.

Writing on iPhone and iPad

While you type, the note keeps the line you are writing in the part of the screen the keyboard leaves free — also when you press Return, or step back and forward with undo. Below the last line there is a little empty space, so you can scroll the line you are writing clear of whatever covers the bottom of the screen.

To stop writing, tap the round button with a keyboard and a down arrow, at the end of the bar above the keyboard. It puts the keyboard away and ends the writing: the cursor goes, and the note is being read again. Touch and hold a paragraph then to pick it up and move it.

To stop writing, use the keyboard's own key for hiding it.