Editor tour
The editor opens when you choose Edit on a page, or + New page in a space. This page walks around it: what each part is for, how your work is saved, and what happens when someone else is editing the same page at the same time.
Opening the editor
Edit, at the top of any page you are allowed to change, opens that page.
+ New page, in the space’s sidebar, starts a new page. If you are looking at a page when you choose it, the new page goes under that one; otherwise it goes at the top of the space.
On a phone, + New beside Edit starts a page under the one you are reading.
A quick look around
From the top down:
The toolbar. Formatting at the left, then + for adding things. At the right: Full width, Publish (Update on a page that is already published) and Close.
Where the page sits: the space and the pages above this one.
The title. Press Enter in it to jump to the first line of the page.
The page itself. Click anywhere and type.
What changed? (optional), under the page, when you edit a page that is already published. A few words here are kept with the new version, so the page’s history can say why it changed: Added the October dates, say, or Fixed the phone number.
The toolbar
Point at any button to see its name. From the left:
The text style menu. It shows the style of the line you are on, such as Normal text or Heading 2, and lists Normal text and Heading 1 to Heading 6. In a narrow window it reads Aa Style, and any buttons that do not fit on the row move into this menu, under the styles, so nothing is ever out of reach.
B, I, U, S and <>: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough and inline code. See Text formatting.
Highlight color and Text color: two palettes. See Colors.
Bullet list, Ordered list and Task list.
Outdent and Indent, which move a paragraph or heading in and out. See Alignment and indentation.
Subscript (x₂), Superscript (x²) and Clear formatting, which takes every style off the selected text.
Alignment: left, center, right or justified.
+: everything else you can add, from a table to a video. See The slash menu.
There is no link button on the row. Select the words and press Ctrl+K (⌘K on a Mac), or choose the link button in the menu that appears over them.
On a phone the toolbar is just Aa Style and + Insert, and every formatting control is inside Aa Style. See The editor on a phone.
Saving your work
Readers never see a change until you decide they should. The button at the top right says what it will do:
Publish, on a new page. Until you publish it, a new page is yours alone: it is not in the page tree, search or anyone’s notifications, even if you have added pictures to it. Publishing makes it version 1, where everyone who can see the space can read it. A page needs a title first.
Update, on a page that is already published. Your changes become a new version, which readers see straight away, and the page’s history keeps the one before.
Close leaves the editor without publishing.
Either way, anyone you have just mentioned with @ is told about the page. More on versions in Drafts, Publish and Update.
Close does not ask first. On a new page it throws the page away, which is handy when you were only trying something out. If you meant to keep it, choose Publish. On a page that is already published, Close leaves the published page as it was; what happens to your changes depends on live editing, below.
If you leave some other way
Leaving the editor by anything other than those buttons, such as a link at the top of the screen, a page in the page tree or your browser’s Back button, stops you with You are leaving the editor, so a stray click never costs you a page. It offers three ways out:
Publish and leave (Update and leave on a published page).
Discard page on a new page, or Leave unpublished on a published one.
Stay in the editor.
Reloading the page or closing the browser tab gets your browser’s own warning instead: it is the only kind a web page is allowed to show at that moment.
Editing with other people
If your administrator has turned on live editing, several people can edit a published page at once. Each of you sees the others’ changes as they are typed, and each person’s cursor in its own color, with their name beside it. It is the easiest way to write meeting notes together, or to fix a page while its author watches.
A small bar above the title tells you how it is going:
Live: changes are shared as you type. All is well.
Connecting to collaboration… Just opened, or finding the server again.
Offline: your changes are local until reconnected. Keep writing: what you type is shared once the connection is back.
With live editing, changes to a published page wait in a shared draft until someone chooses Update. You can close the editor today and find your changes, and everyone else’s, still there tomorrow. Update publishes all of them as one new version.
A new page is written by one person. Live editing starts once it has been published.
Undo takes back only your own changes, never someone else’s.
Changes made by an assistant or through the API while you edit appear highlighted in your draft, with Accept all and Reject all above the page. Update accepts any you have not decided on. See Changes from assistants and the API.
If the page was updated some other way while you were editing, Update is refused rather than overwrite it. The difference is highlighted for you to accept or reject, and then you update again.
Without live editing, there is no shared draft: changes you leave unpublished are lost when you leave the editor, so choose Update before you go. If two people edit the same page at once, the last to choose Update wins. See Editing at the same time.
Full width
A page normally sits in a column narrow enough to read comfortably. Full width, at the top right, lets it use the whole window, which suits a table with many columns or a large diagram. Normal width puts it back.
It changes the page for everyone, straight away, without waiting for Publish or Update. You can also change it while reading the page. In a narrow window the button shows only ⤢, and on a phone it is hidden, since the page already fills the screen.
Giving the page an emoji
An emoji before the title makes a page easy to spot in the page tree: 📅 for meeting notes, 🚀 for a launch plan, 📘 for a guide. It is chosen on the page itself, not in the editor:
Open the page, and choose Add emoji just before its title. You see it on any page you are allowed to change.
Pick one. Search by name, such as rocket or book, or choose from Numbers (1️⃣ 2️⃣ 3️⃣, for pages meant to be read in order) or Bullets. For anything else, paste it into Or paste any emoji and choose Use.
It is saved as soon as you choose. To change it, click the emoji; Remove the emoji is at the bottom of the picker.
Applies to | Tesria 0.5 and later |
|---|---|
Updated | September 24, 2026 |
Changes | Revised. |