Long-form Markdown documents

Most of Thoute is the bullet outliner, but when you want to write something longer, like a spec, an essay, meeting notes, or a blog draft, you can write it as a Markdown document in a full editor. This page covers the three ways to start one and how to make it look the way you want.

What a Markdown document is

A Markdown document is a single file that opens in its own full-screen editor, separate from the outliner. The editor is a live-preview WYSIWYG surface: headings, bold and italic, lists, tables, code blocks, images, and a slash menu for inserting blocks. Type / to see the menu.

Documents live in your vault like everything else. They are end-to-end encrypted and they sync across your devices. See Privacy for what that means.

Three ways to start

1. Start a new document from scratch

1. In the outliner, type a bullet with the text you want as the document's title.
2. Open that bullet's ⋯ menu and choose Convert to Markdown document.
3. The bullet's text becomes the document's name. Open the document and start writing.

This is the quickest way to begin a fresh long-form piece without leaving the outline.

2. Convert part of your outline

Already have notes in the outline that have grown into something longer? Turn that section into a document.

1. Find the parent bullet of the section you want to convert.
2. Open its ⋯ menu and choose Convert to Markdown document.
3. Thoute turns the whole branch into a document: the parent becomes the body, the child bullets become a nested list, and any tasks keep their checkboxes.

The conversion is non-destructive. Your original outline stays exactly where it was, and the new document is added alongside it, so you can keep both.

3. Import a Markdown file

Bringing writing in from somewhere else works too.

1. Drag a .md or .markdown file into Thoute, or paste its contents in.
2. It becomes a document in your vault.
3. Open it and click Edit (the pencil) to open it in the long-form editor.

Writing in the editor

The editor formats as you type, so what you see is close to the finished document.

• Type / for the slash menu: headings, lists, tables, code blocks, images, and more.
• Drag the handle on a block to reorder it, and use the inline toolbar for quick formatting.
• Images you add are encrypted and stored in your vault, just like other attachments.
• Saving is automatic. Your changes save a couple of seconds after you stop typing, and you can save immediately with Cmd+S. If the same document changed on another device while you had unsaved edits, Thoute warns you before anything is overwritten.

Document styles and light or dark

You can change how a document looks without touching its content.

• Click the palette icon in the editor header to pick a style. There are eight typographic themes: GitHub, Bear, Swiss, Avenue, Amelia, Pesto, Ulysses, and Brett Terpstra.
• Each theme comes in a light and a dark version. Use the sun and moon toggle next to the palette to switch between them.
• Want your own look? Choose Custom CSS and write your own styles. They apply only to the document body.
• Your style and light or dark choice are remembered on each device.

The prebuilt styles are adapted from the open-source MarkedCustomStyles collection, with thanks to their authors.

Getting your document back out

Because a document is really a Markdown file, you can download it from the document panel at any time and open it in any other Markdown app. Your writing is never locked in.

See also

• The outliner — the bullet writing model the documents grow out of.
• Attachments — how files and images are stored and encrypted.
• Keyboard shortcuts and syntax — the full reference card.