Text Formatting

Text formatting

OpenNote now has Word-level text tools. Most of them are on the Home tab. Some are behind feature flags that are still off, so check Feature list for the flag name before you look for a tool.

Home tab and mini toolbar

• Font and size boxes. A mixed selection leaves the box blank.
• Bold, italic, and strikethrough. Double strikethrough is in the menu.
• Underline with 17 styles and an underline color menu.
• Text color and highlight. Each keeps the last color you used.
• Grow font and shrink font buttons.
• Case menu, effects, and the format painter. The painter can stay locked on for many paragraphs.
• Bullets and numbering, with a menu of list styles and multilevel lists.
• Alignment, indent, outdent, and line spacing.
• Shading and borders for paragraphs. Borders have eight presets.
• Styles gallery with Normal, Title, Subtitle, Heading 1 to 3, and Quote. The gallery shows the hovered style in the status line.
• Find group with Replace and Select, which can select similar formatting.
• Mini toolbar above a text selection. It has font, size, and the common buttons.
• Right-click menu with Font and Paragraph submenus.
• Aa button on touch screens opens a sheet with 44 pixel targets.

Format pane

The Format pane edits every text and paragraph field, with units and live preview. Behind the text.formatPane flag.

• Text fields: font, weight, size, color, highlight, underline, strikethrough, super and subscript, capitals, emboss, engrave, outline, and shadow.
• Advanced fields: character scale, spacing, position, kerning, ligatures, number forms, and stylistic sets.
• Paragraph fields: alignment, indent, special indent, spacing before and after, line rule, keep with next, keep lines together, page break before, and widow control.
• Tabs, borders, shading, and list levels.
• Units: pt, in, cm, mm, px, and pc. A bad value shows the allowed range and changes nothing.
• Reveal formatting lists each direct format and its source, such as "Bold (direct)" or "Georgia (style Heading 2)".
• Style mode edits one named style. Ctrl+D opens the font dialog.

Language and spelling

Behind the text.language flag.

• Set the language for a selection or a paragraph from the Language menu.
• Do not check spelling for a selection.
• Spell check sends each part of the text with its own language. A language with no installed checker is not checked.
• Right-to-left paragraphs. Set a paragraph to right-to-left or left-to-right on the Home tab.
• Automatic hyphenation for a paragraph or the whole page.

See Language and spelling for the full picture.

Ruler

Behind the text.ruler flag. Turn it on from the View tab.

• The ruler lines up with the text you are editing at any zoom.
• Drag the first-line, hanging, left, and right indent markers. Snap is 1/16 inch. Hold Alt to move freely.
• Add, move, and remove tab stops. Tab types are left, center, right, decimal, bar, first line, and hanging.
• Choose inches, centimeters, or another unit from the ruler.
• Keyboard: arrow keys move a marker by 1/16 inch. Delete removes a tab stop.
• Right-to-left paragraphs show a mirrored ruler.

Comments and suggestions

Behind the text.review flag, which is off in this build.

• Comments. Select text, or put the caret on a word, then press Comment in the Insert tab. The Comments pane lists every comment. Reply, resolve, reopen, or delete one there. Previous and Next comment move through the page in reading order.
• Suggesting. Turn on Track changes (Ctrl+Shift+E). Typed text shows as an insertion, and deleted text stays as a deletion, until someone accepts or rejects it.
• Accept or reject. In the Review tab, accept or reject one change, all changes, or all changes by one author.
• Markup. Simple shows a quiet bar at each insertion. All shows every change. No markup hides them.
• Compare. Compare shows formatting changes, such as bold added to a word.

Not tracked yet: paragraph splits and joins, paragraph formatting in suggestions, table cells, and code blocks.

Known limits

• The Home bar is one row. Narrow windows move some buttons to More.
• The styles gallery does not preview the style in the page.
• The ruler does not move markers for right-to-left text beyond mirroring.
• The default tab interval set in the Format pane is stored on this device.