Formatting as you write

Last updated September 17, 2026

Notate puts formatting where you are working rather than in a row at the top of every note. Select some text and a small toolbar appears over it. Start a new line and a / menu offers the blocks you might want. Put the cursor in a table and the table controls show up next to it.

If you would rather have a permanent row of buttons, you can have that instead. See Choosing your toolbar.

The selection toolbar

Select text and the toolbar opens just above it:

• Turn into changes the whole line: Text, Heading 1 to 3, Bullet, Numbered, Checklist, or Quote. The button is labelled with what the line is now.
• B, I, S and <> apply bold, italic, strikethrough, and inline code. A button is lit when the selection already has that mark, and clicking it again takes the mark off.
• Link and [[ add a normal link or a link to another note.
• Rewrite runs an AI rewrite of the selection: rewrite, make concise, fix grammar, convert to list, expand, or summarize.
• The more menu holds Clear formatting, Ask AI about this, and Copy as plain text.

Selecting with the mouse opens the toolbar when you release the button. Holding Shift and extending with the arrow keys opens it once you pause, so it does not flicker while you are still selecting. Cmd/Ctrl+/ opens it on demand, and selects the word under the cursor if nothing is selected yet.

Press Esc to dismiss it. It will not come back for that same selection, so it stays out of the way once you have told it to go. For the keyboard, Alt+F10 moves focus into an open toolbar and the arrow keys move between its buttons.

Inside a fenced code block the toolbar offers only Copy and Rewrite, since the formatting marks would just become literal characters.

The / menu

Type / at the start of a line and a menu opens with everything you can insert. Keep typing to filter it, use the arrow keys to choose, and press Enter or Tab to insert.

Mid-sentence, after a list marker, or inside a table cell, the menu narrows to the things that make sense inline: link to a note, image, from your library, and continue writing.

The menu deliberately stays out of the way the rest of the time. It does not open when the slash follows a letter, digit, or symbol, so and/or, 9/16, and https:// stay as you typed them. It does not open inside a code block, inside inline code, in the frontmatter block, or inside a link. It closes as soon as nothing matches, so a path like /Users/maya/notes just stays text. Press Esc and that slash will not reopen it.

On an empty line you also get a + button at the left margin. Clicking it does the same thing as typing /.

Block controls

Put the cursor in a block and its controls appear at the top right of that block, with the block itself marked in the accent color down the left edge.

• Tables get add row, add column, column alignment, and a menu with delete row, delete column, move row, and delete table.
• Lists get outdent and indent, a checklist toggle, and mark done or not done on a task.
• Code blocks get a language picker, which rewrites the fence, and copy.

Put the cursor inside a [[note link]] or a [markdown](link) and a card shows where it points, with buttons to open it, change or edit the target, and unlink.

Pasting a URL

Paste a single URL and a chip appears underneath offering Preview card, Link, and Plain URL, with the current result highlighted. Pick a different one and the paste changes in place. The chip disappears as soon as you carry on typing.

Which one you get by default depends on Link previews in Editor preferences. With it on you get a preview card and can drop back to a plain link; with it off you get the plain URL and can fetch a card on demand.

In Preview

Selecting text in Preview gives you a smaller toolbar: Copy, Copy as Markdown, Ask AI, and Edit here, which switches to the editor with the cursor on the line you selected.

In Split view the toolbars belong to the editor pane. Selecting in the preview side does not open one.

Choosing your toolbar

Open Settings → Editor → Toolbar on web or desktop:

• Contextual is the default. Formatting appears where you are working, and there is no formatting row above the note.
• Fixed puts the familiar row of formatting buttons back above the note, and turns off the selection toolbar, the block controls, the + button, and the link card.

The / menu and the paste chip work in both, since they only appear in response to something you typed or pasted.

Either way, the row directly above the text keeps the view mode tabs (Editor, Split, Live, Preview), the line numbers toggle, the frontmatter toggle, and the note’s tags. In Fixed mode the formatting buttons join the view controls on their own row below it.

Without an AI plan

Rewrite and Ask AI appear with their options greyed out and an upgrade card offering an AI plan or your own API key. On an encrypted account they are greyed with a note explaining that AI features cannot read your notes, and no upgrade offer, since upgrading would not change it. With AI switched off in Settings, the Rewrite button is not shown at all.

Keyboard shortcuts

The usual marks work wherever your cursor is, with or without the toolbar open:

The full list lives in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts. See Keyboard shortcuts.