---
title: "Editor"
description: "Editing raw Markdown, writing modes, formatting, focus, and saving."
---

# Editor

The Notarium editor always edits the **raw Markdown file** — the single source of truth. Whatever you do, plain Markdown lands on disk with no cruft: no re-escaping, no re-normalizing lists, no collapsing the frontmatter. This is what sets Notarium apart from rich editors that store a normalized tree and rebuild the file on save — a round trip that loses some of the original formatting. Under the hood it's CodeMirror 6: a formatting toolbar, keyboard shortcuts, multi-cursor, and syntax highlighting.

![The editor in Source mode: raw Markdown with syntax highlighting](/media/app-editor-light.webp)

## The title is the first line

There's no separate "Title" field. **A note's title is its leading `# H1`**, which you edit right in the document as the first line. A new note opens on a `# ` line with the cursor sitting on the title.

- If there's no leading `# H1`, the title becomes the first non-empty **prose** line — a quick jot won't turn into "Untitled."
- But if the document opens with a **structural block** (a code fence, list, quote, table, or an H2-or-lower heading) and no title is set, the note **won't save without a title**: that way the first line of code or a list doesn't silently leak into the title.

## Writing modes

On top of the note's single body sit writing modes — a personal setting for how the text looks while you edit it. A mode doesn't change the file's bytes: it's decoration over an unchanged string, so switching modes and saving are byte-for-byte identical.

| Mode | What it shows |
|---|---|
| **Source** | Raw Markdown as-is: monospace font, themed syntax highlighting. You edit the markup itself. |
| **WYSIWYM** | "What you see is what you *mean*": the text is styled (headings larger, bold in bold, quotes and code with a background), **but the Markdown markers stay on screen**, dimmed — a semantic scaffold. |

Switch it in **Settings → Appearance → Editor mode** (a `Source / WYSIWYM` segmented control). The choice is personal, stored in the browser; the default is **Source**.

> [!note] Preview is a separate axis
> The **Preview** button in the top bar shows the note's final HTML render (the same one you see in reading mode) in any mode, without saving. "How I work" (Source/WYSIWYM) and "editing vs. viewing" (Edit/Preview) are independent.

## Focus and typewriter

On top of any mode sit two independent helpers for long-form text:

- **Focus** dims everything except the active unit under the caret. You pick the granularity yourself — **Sentence / Line / Paragraph**. Shortcut: `⌘/Ctrl+Shift+F`.
- **Typewriter** keeps the line with the caret vertically centered — the document scrolls beneath it. Shortcut: `⌘/Ctrl+Shift+Y`.

Both are personal toggles that survive a reload. You turn them on in three ways: with the shortcut, with two icons in the editor status bar, and through **Settings → Appearance** (where you also pick the Focus granularity).

## Saving and conflicts

Save a note with **`Ctrl/Cmd+Enter`**. Notarium guards against losing unsaved work and resolves a conflict when the same note is changed concurrently from another tab or by an AI agent.

An agent over MCP reads and writes the same Markdown body a human does — the writing mode has nothing to do with it; it's purely client-side. For more on humans and agents working together, see [Humans and agents](/docs/concepts/human-and-agents/); for version history, see [Versioning](/docs/concepts/versioning/).

See also: [Reading and appearance](/docs/guides/reading/) — the font and size the editor inherits — and the [Keyboard shortcuts reference](/docs/reference/keyboard-shortcuts/).