Formatting

The format bar sits above the page (View ▸ Hide/Show Format Bar). It works on rich text pages and on the formatted view of Markdown Pages. On pages it can't format — plain text, attachments, locked pages — it stays in place but grays out, so the window never reshuffles as you move between pages.

The Paragraph style menu at the left sets the current line to Body or any of Heading 1 through Heading 6 — six levels for deep outlines — and always shows the block your cursor is in. Each level renders at its own distinct size, so the hierarchy reads at a glance.

Prefer a lighter touch? Turn on Show a floating format bar over selected text in Settings ▸ Editing and a compact bar pops up right above whatever you select, the way modern editors do: Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, Superscript, Subscript, Highlight, then Heading 1–6 (click again to drop back to body text), bullet / numbered / to-do lists, a Link, and ✦ Edit with AI. Buttons light up to show what's already applied.

Superscript and subscript

Squares and citations sit up; chemistry sits down. Select the characters and click x² or x₂ beside Strikethrough (they're in the floating bar and the / menu too, and Format ▸ Superscript/Subscript can carry any shortcut you give them in Settings ▸ Shortcuts). Applying one clears the other, so flipping a stray subscript into a superscript is one click, not two.

On Markdown pages they travel as x^2^ and H~2~O — the markers hug the text with nothing loose inside, which is exactly what keeps ordinary prose like "5^2 and 3^4" or a ~/Documents path from ever turning into stray scripts.

The page header

Each page opens with an editorial masthead — its type, the title in a serif face, and a meta line ("created… · edited… · N linked here"). Click the title to rename the page right there; every link to it updates with the new name. Prefer things bare? The page title, the format bar, the tab bar, and the page-type label can each be shown or hidden on their own from the View menu.

The / menu

Type / at the start of a line for an inline menu of blocks and formatting — quicker than reaching for the toolbar. Keep typing to filter, ↑/↓ to choose, Return to insert, Esc to dismiss. The commands are grouped: Text (headings, quote), Lists (bullet, numbered, checkbox), Blocks (divider, table, code block, inline code, toggle), Callouts (note, tip, warning, and more), and Insert (link, page link, image, page embed, bookmark, YouTube video, footnote — all of them on rich-text pages too). It works on rich text pages and the formatted view of Markdown Pages. Prefer the mouse? The ＋ button on the format bar opens the same menu, grouped and clickable.

Type it, don't click it

If you think in Markdown, just type it — MojoPad turns the marker into the real thing the moment you press space at the start of a line:

• -, *, or + → a bulleted list
• 1. → a numbered list
• [] → a to-do item
• # … ###### → Heading 1 through Heading 6
• > → a quote, and ``` → a code block

It only fires when the marker is the whole line so far, so it never disturbs a dash mid-sentence, and it leaves an existing list alone. Prefer keys? ⇧⌘8 starts a bullet, ⇧⌘9 a numbered item, and ⇧⌘L a to-do.

In the raw Markdown source view (⌃⌘P), lists are just text — so pressing Return at the end of a list line continues the list (numbered lists renumber; Return on an empty item leaves the list), and the same ⇧⌘8 / ⇧⌘9 / ⇧⌘L shortcuts insert or toggle the marker on the current line — or on every line you've selected, so you can turn a run of rows into a numbered list in one go.

The outline moves work here too. Tab and ⇧Tab nest and un-nest the row you're on (or every row in your selection) — two spaces of indent per level, exactly what Markdown reads as nesting. New Row as Child, New Row at Parent Level, and New Row Above insert a fresh marker at the right depth. So the source view outlines just like the formatted one; only the moves are made in text.

Mixing bullets and numbers in one list

A single list can switch between bullets and numbers partway through — number the middle few items and leave the rest as bullets. Select the rows and choose Numbered (or Format ▸ Convert List to Numbered); in the raw Markdown source view, just type 1. on the lines you want numbered and - on the rest. The formatted view renders each run on its own — bullets, then a numbered stretch, then bullets again — and it round-trips through Markdown unharmed.

To make everything bigger or smaller, press ⌘+ and ⌘− — it resizes the whole editor, on every kind of page including Markdown, and sticks. (The same setting lives in Settings ▸ Editing ▸ Text size.)

Paragraph styles from the keyboard

Press ⌃⌘S (or Format ▸ Paragraph Style…) and the entire style dropdown turns into a small list under your fingers: Body, Heading 1–6, Quote, Code block, and the three list kinds — bulleted, numbered, and to-do. The style your cursor is sitting in comes preselected, so the list doubles as an answer to "what is this line?". Type a few letters to narrow it (g 3 finds Heading 3, quo finds Quote), press Return, and the line converts — your cursor returns to the exact spot it was in, even mid-word, so you can restyle a line and keep typing without a glance at the mouse. Choosing the style the line already has turns it back to Body, the same toggle the dropdown does. Like every key in MojoPad, it's yours to remap under Settings ▸ Shortcuts.

Moving lines

Put the cursor on a line and press ⌃⌘↑ or ⌃⌘↓ — the line swaps places with its neighbour and the cursor rides along, so you can walk an item up a list by tapping the shortcut a few times. It knows what a "line" is wherever you are: a list item moves within its list, a paragraph or heading moves among the page's blocks, and in the raw Markdown source view it's the literal text line under the cursor. ⌘Z undoes a move like any other edit. The same commands live in Format ▸ Move Line Up / Down. (Blocks have a bigger brother: ⌥⌘↑ / ⌥⌘↓ moves the whole block, and a whole list moves as one.)

Make the page read the way you like

The controls in Settings ▸ Editing shape how your writing sits on the page, and all of them apply live — keep a page visible while you change them and watch it follow:

• Default font and Text size — the body of your writing.
• Heading font and Heading size — every heading level, on every page, in one place. This is the way to restyle headings: set it once here rather than styling each page's headings by hand (custom fonts and sizes can't survive on Markdown pages, whose storage keeps structure over decoration — though text color and highlight now do). The theme's serif stays until you choose otherwise.
• Line spacing — how tall each line stands. Nudge it up for airy, down for dense.
• Paragraph spacing — extra air between paragraphs, so you can separate them visually without typing blank lines. It applies to your formatted pages and stays out of the raw Markdown source view, where blank lines mean something.
• Markdown source font — the raw Markdown view has its own typeface, separate from your writing font. It starts as the classic fixed-width look; pick any installed font instead.
• Cursor thickness and Cursor colour — if the blinking hairline is easy to lose, make it a solid bar: Medium, Bold, or Extra bold, in any colour (it starts on your theme's accent; Reset returns it there). The thick cursor rides everywhere you type on a page — headings, lists, the Markdown source view — and still blinks so your eye can catch it. Native thin stays the default.

Typewriter scrolling

Writing at the bottom edge of the screen gets old — your eyes live in your lap. Flip on View ▸ Typewriter Scrolling and the line you're typing stays pinned near the middle of the window: as you write, the page slides up underneath you, the way a typewriter feeds paper. It only moves when you type or travel (Return, arrows, deleting) — plain reading, clicking, and scrolling are never hijacked. Works in every editor view, remembers your choice, and turns off the same way you turned it on.

Word completions

As you type, MojoPad can offer to finish a word for you. After the first few letters, a small list appears — press Tab to accept the highlighted one (or ↑ ↓ to pick another), and just keep typing to ignore it. By default it draws from words you've already used across your wiki — your names, jargon, and recurring terms — so it stays quiet and personal. It's on by default; turn it off under Settings ▸ Editing. (Completing a page name, to make a link, still lives on [[ — see Pages and Linking.)

Two settings, right under the toggle, let you tune it to taste:

• Start suggesting after 2, 3, or 4 letters. Fewer letters means it offers help sooner but pops up more often; more letters keeps it out of the way until you're clearly mid-word. Three is the calm default.
• Include common English words. Off by default. Turn it on and MojoPad also completes the ~10,000 most common English words — so a longer word you haven't typed yet (say necessary or opportunity) still fills in. Your own words always come first; common words only fill the remaining slots beneath them, so they never bury your vocabulary. This is why it isn't on out of the box — a full dictionary would suggest something for nearly every word and get noisy, so we keep it opt-in and always ranked under what you actually write.

The controls, left to right

• Paragraph style — Body, Heading 1–6. Follows your cursor, so it always shows what you're in. In Markdown pages, headings round-trip to # syntax.
• Font and size — also follow the cursor. The font menu lists every font installed on your Mac — including accessibility faces like Atkinson Hyperlegible — not a short fixed set. The document default lives in Settings ▸ Editing.
• B / I / U / S — ⌘B, ⌘I, ⌘U, and strikethrough.
• Text color and highlight — ink, and a highlighter with a small color palette (see Highlighting below).
• Links — a web address links itself: paste a URL and it drops in clickable (paste it over selected text to link that text), or type one and press space or return. Pressing return after a link starts the next line as plain text, not more link. Format ▸ Link to a File… (also on the / menu) points a link at a file on your disk — click it to open the file in its default app. For links to other pages, see Page Links Everywhere.
• Alignment, bulleted / numbered lists, outdent / indent (⌥⌘[ / ⌥⌘]).
• Spacing — line spacing for the selected paragraphs.
• Reading width — the S · M · L · F control at the far end sets how wide the writing column runs (F = full). It's remembered per page, with a document-wide default in Settings ▸ Page Layout; embedded videos follow it too.

Highlighting

Select a passage and hit Highlight (the highlighter on the format bar, or the H on the floating bar). It comes in a small palette — amber, green, pink, and blue — so you can color-code as you read. On the floating bar, H applies your last-used color and toggles it off if the passage is already marked; the ▾ beside it opens the palette (with ⌀ to remove). On the main format bar, the highlighter button opens the palette directly.

Highlights are translucent, which is the point: rather than a fixed color painted over your words, the tint lets the page's own text show through — so a highlight stays clear and readable in every theme, light or dark, and looks right if you switch themes later. Highlights made in older versions are refreshed to match the first time you open the page.

Lists and checkboxes

Start a list from the keyboard: Format ▸ Make Bullet Item (⇧⌘8), Make Numbered Item (⇧⌘9), or Make Checkbox Item (⇧⌘L) — each turns a line, or a whole selection, into that kind of list. (Or just type -, 1., or [] and a space — see "Type it, don't click it" above.) Checked items dim and strike through; pair with Plugin ▸ Strike Out and Move to Bottom (⌃⌘⌫) for a very satisfying done-with-this gesture.

To reshape an existing list, use Format ▸ Convert List To ▸ Checklist, Bulleted, Numbered, or Plain Text (also in the / menu and the command palette). With your cursor in a list it converts the whole list; select just a few lines and it converts only those — so you can put checkboxes on two items in the middle of a numbered list and the rest keep counting.

Tables

Format ▸ Table… inserts a table; Tab and ⇧Tab move between cells, and Tab in the last cell adds a row.

Images

Paste or drag images straight into a page. On a rich text page, click an image and a small corner handle appears — drag it and the image follows, any size you like, shape kept. (Markdown pages keep the preset menu below: their storage is plain image syntax, which has nowhere to write a width.) Right-click ▸ Image Size scales to 25 / 50 / 75 / 100% of the page width on any page. Double-click an image to edit it in your image editor (saves flow back into the page automatically); option-double-click saves it out as a file. See External Editors.

Sketch

⇧⌘K opens a drawing canvas — pencil colors, four nib sizes — and Insert drops the sketch into the page as an image. Double-click a sketch to reopen the canvas with your strokes intact and keep drawing.

Plain-text niceties

Plugin ▸ Alphabetize sorts the selected paragraphs, list items, or lines. Edit ▸ Paste and Match Style (⌥⇧⌘V) pastes without funky formatting.

Lists continue themselves. On a plain-text page, end a line like - milk or 3. pack the car and press return — the next line starts with the next marker (numbers count up on their own). Press return on an empty item to end the list. It's all still plain text: the markers are just characters, exactly what you'd get typing them yourself.