Notes and the editor
Rich text, markdown shortcuts, tables, images, math, version history, and exporting everything as markdown.
MemNote’s editor is rich text on the surface and markdown underneath. You can work either way, and switch between them on the same note.
Two ways to edit the same note
The toolbar has a MD button (on narrow windows, an icon whose tooltip reads Markdown Mode / Visual Mode). It flips the open note between:
- Visual mode — a formatted document. Headings look like headings, tables look like tables, math renders.
- Markdown mode — the raw markdown source, with syntax highlighting and line numbers, for when you would rather type the characters yourself.
Formatting
The toolbar carries Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, Blockquote, headings Header 1 through Header 5 (and Clear Heading to go back to body text), Bullet List, Ordered List, Checklist, plus Undo and Redo. On a window narrower than about 900 pixels the toolbar collapses into menus — Text Styling, Headings, Lists, Manage Tags, Insert — with Close to step back out.
Markdown shortcuts
You can also just type markdown and watch it convert. Each of these fires when you press space at the start of a line:
| Type this | You get |
|---|---|
# … ###### | Heading levels 1 to 6 |
[], [ ], [x] | A checklist item — x makes it checked |
| Three backticks | A code block |
$$ | A math block |
| A pipe, a dash, a pipe | A table |
Inline, **bold**, *italics*, ~strikethrough~, and backtick code convert
as you close them. Inline code has no toolbar button — backticks are the way to
get it.
Pasting
Paste is deliberately conservative. MemNote converts pasted text to formatted
content only when it clearly is markdown — a # heading, a code fence, two or
more list items, a blockquote, a pipe table, an image, or a math block. Anything
else is pasted as plain paragraphs, so my_variable_name and bare URLs survive
intact.
Copying out of the editor puts markdown on your clipboard, so formatting survives a round trip through another app.
Tables, images, and math
Tables — the Table button opens a small grid; drag across it to choose how many rows and columns you want.
Images — the Image button, or drag a PNG, JPEG, or WebP straight onto the editor.
- On Windows, macOS, and Linux you get a file picker (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, SVG), and you can select several at once.
- On a phone you are asked Take photo or Choose from gallery.
Images live with the note and sync to your other devices.
Math — MemNote supports LaTeX, which is what makes it a comfortable place to
paste answers out of an AI assistant. Type $$ and a space for a math block.
Links
Type a URL and press space, and MemNote fetches the page title and turns it into a proper link. Tapping an existing link offers to open or edit it.
Notes can also link to each other. The note list’s context menu (right-click, or long-press on a phone) has Copy Link and Insert Link for building a web of notes.
Tags
Manage Tags in the toolbar opens a sheet where you can search existing tags, type several separated by commas, or create a new one on the spot. Applied tags appear as chips below the toolbar; tap one to reopen the sheet. See Search and tags for what to do with them afterwards.
Version history
Every note keeps its past. The History button (a toolbar button on desktop, a top-bar icon on a phone) opens Version History: Current Version at the top, then each archived version below it with an excerpt.
- Show Changes turns on a coloured diff against the previous version.
- Restore brings an old version back. The version you are replacing is saved to history first, so restoring is itself undoable.
A version is archived when you close a note whose content or tags changed while it was open, and whenever a note is edited through the REST API or an AI assistant. Sync uses it too — see Sync and devices.
Export and import
MemNote writes plain markdown and will hand all of it back to you.
Settings → Data Management → Export all notes (Markdown) produces a zip
containing one .md file per note plus an images/ folder. Each file starts
with a YAML frontmatter block holding everything MemNote knows about the note —
its id, title, created and updated times, latitude and longitude, the resolved
address fields, the device name and platform, and its tags. Image references and
note-to-note links are rewritten to relative paths, so the export is a working
folder of markdown, not a pile of broken links.
Export is all-or-nothing from Settings; there is no per-note export.
Import Notes (Markdown) in the same section reads a MemNote export zip back in.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl/Cmd + Z | Undo |
| Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Z | Redo |
| Home / End | Start / end of line (Shift to select) |
| Ctrl/Cmd + Home / End | Start / end of the note |
| Page Up / Page Down | Scroll by a screen |
Related
- Context capture — what MemNote records alongside what you write.
- Trash — deleting a note and getting it back.