Notes & Markdown

Last updated: 2026-08-21

Every note in Plainva is an ordinary Markdown file (.md). This page explains how to write comfortably and what actually ends up in the file — because that is exactly what makes your notes portable: any text editor, Obsidian, or a git diff can read them.

The core principle: everything is text

Whatever you see in Plainva — formatted text, tables, properties, icons — is stored as open text:

---
type: Note
tags: [project]
plainva:
  icon: "🚀"
  header_color: "#2f6f6f"
---
# My Project

A **bold** thought with a link to [[Another Note]].

- [ ] First task

The block between the --- lines is the frontmatter (YAML): that is where the note’s properties live. Below it comes the regular Markdown text. Plainva-specific presentation (icon, header color) is bundled under the single plainva: key — other programs simply ignore it.

Writing in Live Preview

Live Preview is the default mode: Markdown renders as you type yet stays editable at all times.

The slash menu

Type / at the start of a line to open the insert menu. It is grouped into sections:

• Basic blocks — Text, Heading 1–6, Bulleted List, Numbered List, To-do List, Quote, Code Block, Table, Divider, Formula (LaTeX), Mermaid diagram
• Formatting — Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, Inline Code, Highlight, Emoji
• Links & media — Link, Internal Link, Image (web), Internal image, Embed, Embed database, Create inline database
• Document — Document icon, Header color, Insert Template
• Callouts — 13 variants (Note, Info, To-do, Summary, Tip, Success, Question, Warning, Failure, Danger, Bug, Example, Quote)

More writing helpers

• Selection toolbar — select some text and a small bar offers Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, Inline code, Highlight and Link.
• @ mentions — type @ anywhere in the text to insert a Date (Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, or Pick a date…, stored as an ISO date), a link to a Note, or a Database embed.
• Emoji — the Emoji slash command (/emoji) opens an emoji picker at the cursor; or type :name (for example :rocket) for inline suggestions. Either way Plainva inserts the actual emoji character (portable Unicode), never a :shortcode: — so the note stays readable in Obsidian, on GitHub and everywhere else. (This is separate from the note’s Document icon, which is stored in the frontmatter.)
• Block handles — a handle appears to the left of each paragraph on hover: drag it to move the block, click it to open Block actions (Turn into Text/Heading/List/To-do/Quote/Code block, Duplicate, Move up/Move down, Delete block). If you drag a list next to another list of the same kind, Plainva inserts an invisible separator line <!-- --> so both lists stay separate — in Markdown, same-style lists would otherwise merge despite the blank line (in Obsidian too).
• Tables — rendered as a widget with click-to-edit cells. The cell display renders formatting (bold, italic, code, highlight), clickable links ([[Internal Link]], web addresses) and <br> as a line break; while editing you see the raw text. The table menu offers inserting/deleting rows and columns plus alignment (Align left/Align center/Align right).
• Lists continue themselves (Enter inserts the next list marker), code blocks get language-aware highlighting (in the reading view as well), pasted content is converted to Markdown (smart paste), and headings can be folded.
• Find & replace inside the current note: Ctrl+F (see Search).

Links and backlinks

• Internal links: [[Note name]] (wiki link) — via the slash menu or @ with built-in note search. Classic Markdown links [text](path.md) work as well.
• Targets that don’t exist yet: A wiki link to a note that hasn’t been created yet is shown muted with a dashed underline (both in live preview and reading mode). Clicking it creates the note and opens it — placed in the current note’s folder (or at the given path if the link contains one, e.g. [[Folder/New note]]). To be asked first, enable Settings → App → Editor & Notes → Ask before creating empty links.
• Backlinks: The Backlinks section in the right sidebar shows which notes link to the active one — grouped per source file, with a counter for multiple occurrences.
• Rename with link care: When you rename a file in the file tree, Plainva updates every link to it across the whole vault (anchors like #Section are preserved) and reports: “N link(s) in M file(s) were updated to the new name.”

Properties (frontmatter)

The Properties section in the right sidebar shows the note’s frontmatter as a form. Add property creates new ones; every property has a Field type:

Choice types can carry fixed options with a Color and (for Status) a Group/stage — these option lists are managed in databases (.base), see Databases (.base).

Protected are the OKF system fields Plainva manages: type (the value is selectable from a dropdown of known types, name/field type/delete are locked) and — where older notes still carry it — okf_version (display only; since OKF 0.2 the field belongs in the root index.md alone). Background: OKF.

Status, stale notice and review mark (OKF 0.2)

Five optional properties from OKF 0.2 let a note say where it came from and whether it still holds — Plainva shows them without any setup:

• Status badge: if a note carries status: draft or status: deprecated, the document header shows the badge Draft or Deprecated. stable stays silent. A status column of your own with other values (say Open) is unaffected — it is an ordinary property and gets no badge.
• Stale notice: once stale_after has passed, Marked as stale (since …) appears above the note with Open properties. The notice changes nothing in the note; it only reminds.
• Trust & provenance: a section of its own in the properties panel summarises generated (Generated), verified (Verified), sources (Sources, clickable), status and stale_after (Stale after) and derives a level from them — Not verified, Machine-confirmed or Reviewed by a person.
• Mark as reviewed: the button in that section appends your name with the current instant to the verified list (human:<name>); Plainva asks for the name once per vault and keeps it on this device only (changeable under Settings → Vault → Content & structure → Reviewer name). On the phone the same action lives in the note’s context sheet.

Plainva sets generated and sources only where it creates notes itself — in the importer, in mail capture and in the task sync; the editor never stamps, and existing notes are not stamped after the fact. The field contract is in the File Format Reference, the background under OKF.

Document icon and header color

Every note can carry an icon (Notion-style above the title, also visible in tabs and the file tree) and a full-width color stripe:

• In Live Preview, hover above the title: Add icon / Add header color (later: Change icon / Change header color) — or use the slash commands Document icon and Header color.
• The icon picker has two modes — Emoji and Icons — that work the same way: one head zone, one search, categories (tabs) in both modes, and a Recently used section that survives a restart.
• The icon set is about 400 curated icons in ten categories (Knowledge & files, Work & tasks, Tech, People & contact, Creative & media, Everyday & home, Nature & weather, Travel & places, Money & numbers, Symbols & states). Search matches names and keywords.
• In icon mode you pick a colour at the top — the same palette as the header stripe, A for the default, Custom colour … for a free value. It applies to the icon you tap next.
• Both are stored in the frontmatter under plainva: (icon, icon_color, header_color) — pure presentation that does not affect other programs.

Templates

Set a Template Folder under Settings → Vault → Content & structure (Choose folder… next to the field lets you pick the folder right inside the vault). Then insert templates via Ctrl+Alt+T or the slash command Insert Template. Templates fully define the content of new files — including frontmatter: if a template brings its own type, the template wins. When inserting into an existing note, the template’s frontmatter is left out — only the content lands.

Placeholders: templates fill in named placeholders — no scripts, no expressions; none of it executes code.

Language of dates: weekday and month names (dddd, MMMM) follow the app language — in a German interface {{date:dddd, D. MMMM YYYY}} writes Mittwoch, 29. Juli 2026. A daily note’s file name deliberately stays English: it has to match the format that created it, or Plainva stops finding the daily notes you already have.

When a template asks something, Plainva asks everything in one dialog before the note is written — whether you insert or create; cancelling creates nothing. Only notes created in the background (the task sync, for instance) are never asked about: there the answers stay empty. A placeholder Plainva does not know stays visible — so a typo looks like a typo.

On the phone the same engine runs: placeholders are filled in, a template’s questions arrive together in one sheet (cancelling creates nothing), and the folder → template and note type → template rules apply there as well — so a note in Projekte/ starts the same way on both devices. Two differences: the rules are authored on the desktop (the phone only applies them), and {{weekday:…}} always counts from Monday there, because the first-day-of-week setting does not exist on mobile yet.

Template-only settings: a template can carry settings that apply to the template itself — that its tasks stay out of the Tasks view, or which databases it belongs to. A note created from it does not inherit them. Very old daily notes may still carry them; the FAQ explains how to find them.

Templates per folder: under Settings → Vault → Content & structure → Templates you map a folder to a template — every new note there then starts from it, without you choosing anything. The mapping also covers subfolders; when several match, the longest path wins (Projects/Clients beats Projects). You map a template to a note type the same way; it applies when no folder rule covers the note — folder beats type. New note from template … (right-click in the file tree, the command palette or the quick switcher) lets you pick one explicitly — that beats every mapping. The mappings live in the settings, not in the notes, and travel to your other devices through the settings sync.

Creating templates works from anywhere: the command palette (Ctrl+P) offers Create new template (a fresh template opens for editing) and Save current note as template (copies the open note into the template folder). Templates are ordinary Markdown files — edit, rename or delete them right in the file tree.

Daily notes

Open Daily Note (sidebar) or a click in the Calendar creates today’s note using your date format in the configured daily notes folder, optionally from a template.

Tasks, formulas, diagrams and footnotes

• Task checkboxes: - [ ] task renders as a checkbox everywhere — and in read mode you can click it: Plainva writes [x] or [ ] back into the file.

• Math (LaTeX): $E = mc^2$ inline and $$…$$ as a block render as formulas in read mode AND in the live preview (KaTeX). With the caret inside a formula you see the syntax; clicking a rendered formula opens it for editing. Only source mode always shows the raw syntax. You do not have to memorize the $$…$$ block — the Formula (LaTeX) slash command (/katex) inserts it and places the caret inside.

• Mermaid diagrams: a code block with the language mermaid (fastest via the Mermaid diagram slash command, /mermaid) is drawn as a diagram in read mode and in the live preview — clicking the diagram shows the code for editing:

  ```mermaid
  graph TD
    Idea --> Note --> Knowledge
  ```

• Footnotes: Text[^1] plus [^1]: The footnote. at the end — read mode renders the reference and the footnote apparatus with jump marks. The fastest way is the Footnote slash command (/footnote): it inserts the next free reference and jumps straight into the definition at the end of the note.

Printing and saving as PDF

The editor’s ⋮ menu and the command palette (Ctrl+P) have Print / Save as PDF…: printing always uses the read view (from live/source, Plainva switches into it first). In the system dialog you can pick “Save as PDF” instead of a printer.

Exporting a note

• Export as Markdown… (editor ⋮ menu or command palette): saves a copy of the note anywhere via the system dialog — for example to hand it to another program. Linked attachments (images) are not copied along; Plainva shows a short notice when the note references any.
• PDF: use Print / Save as PDF… (above) and choose “Save as PDF” in the system dialog.

Opening a note in another editor

Your notes are plain .md files, so any Markdown editor can open them. The editor’s ⋮ menu has Open in default app, which hands the current note to the app your system uses for Markdown files (Byword, MacDown, VS Code and so on). Plainva keeps watching the file, so edits you make there appear here automatically.

Images and attachments

• Inserting: slash commands Internal image (search & embed from the vault) or Image (web) (by URL). Also: simply paste a file from the clipboard (Ctrl+V) — an image just as much as a PDF or a spreadsheet. And you can drag files from the file explorer into the editor: images embed (![[…]]), other files are copied in and linked ([[…]]). Where these files land is a setting: Settings → Your vault → Content & structure → Attachments folder (default Attachments, with a folder browser). Leave it empty to keep them beside the note, the way Plainva did before this setting existed. The folder travels with the settings sync, so both your computer and your phone file attachments in the same place.
• Attach file…: the slash command Attach file… and the same entry in the note’s ⋮ menu open your system’s file dialog; on the phone it is in the ＋ sheet as File from device…. The file is copied into the attachments folder — images embed (![[…]]), everything else is linked ([[…]]).
• Linking: type [[ and Plainva suggests notes first, with your vault’s files below them under Attachments.
• Viewing: image files (PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP, SVG, BMP, AVIF) open in the built-in image viewer with Zoom in/Zoom out, Fit and Actual size (1:1).
• Editing: the Edit button opens the image editor with Crop, rotate/flip, Resize, drawing tools (Pen, Arrow, Rectangle, Text) plus Undo/Redo. Save in place or Save as copy…. Editable formats are PNG, JPG and WebP; other formats open view-only.
• Text files open inside Plainva: .txt, .csv, .json, .yaml, source code and the like. If your vault needs more, add the extensions under Settings → Your vault → Content & structure → More text files — the list can only add, never take away. If the start of a file shows it is not text after all, Plainva does not display it and offers the default program instead: showing and saving it would damage the file. A file opened this way keeps its line endings and its BOM when saved — it is yours, not Plainva’s. While you edit, Plainva colours the text by its file extension — the same highlighting a fenced code block inside a note gets. The note tools stay off: no live preview, no properties header, no [[links]], no ”/” menu. Find and replace stays, because that is a text feature and not a note feature.
• Other attachments open in the system’s default program on a single click — in the file tree just as via a [[link]], a bookmark or search.

What about Obsidian?

Everything stays standard Markdown with standard frontmatter. Obsidian opens the files fully; it shows the bundled plainva: key as a non-editable object in its properties panel — that is intentional and harmless.

See also

• Databases (.base) — notes as a table, board or calendar
• OKF — what type, the bundle version and the OKF 0.2 fields mean
• Search and Keyboard Shortcuts

Formatting a selection

When a selection spans multiple lines, bold, italic, strikethrough, highlight, and inline code are applied separately to every non-empty line. List, quote, heading, and task prefixes stay outside the inline markers. Links remain single-line because a multiline link label is not portable Markdown.

An ATX heading and a GFM task are alternative block types, so Plainva does not write an invalid hybrid. Inline formatting works in both; use - [ ] **Important task** for an emphasized task title.