Annotations

What they are

Annotations are short remarks pinned to a specific passage of your text. Think of them as notes to your future self: a reminder to rework a clumsy sentence, a question about a plot detail, a flag that a name needs checking. The remark lives in the side panel, the passage itself gets a quiet highlight in the editor, and the two stay linked. Annotations are private working notes; they never appear in normal reading exports and they never count toward your word count. Every document keeps its own set.

Creating an annotation

Select the passage you want to remark on. The floating toolbar appears above the selection, with the Annotate button at its right end. Choose it to open a small text box where you can type up to a thousand characters. Press Enter or choose Save to attach the remark. Press Escape or choose Cancel to stop. The selected passage is highlighted as soon as the annotation is saved.

In the editor

Annotated passages carry a subtle tint, deliberately quieter than a normal highlight so your text stays readable. The highlight covers exactly what you selected: typing at its edges will not stretch it, so the mark stays on the words you meant. Click any highlighted passage and the context panel opens on the Annotations tab, scrolls to the matching card, and flashes it briefly so you can see which remark belongs to that spot.

The Annotations panel

Open the context panel on the right side of the editor and switch to the Annotations tab. Your annotations follow the order of their passages in the document. Long remarks show a Show more link. Each annotation has controls for editing it, returning to its passage, or deleting it. Once you have five or more annotations, a search box appears above the list. It searches both your remarks and the selected text in the document.

Deleting and orphans

Deleting an annotation removes both the remark and the highlight. A brief message appears with an Undo button in case you change your mind. If you delete the selected text from the document instead, the remark stays in the panel, moves to the end of the list, and is marked Text removed. You can still read, edit, or delete it, but you can no longer return to a passage that is gone.

Good to know

• Each annotation holds up to 1,000 characters, and a document can carry up to 100 annotations.
• Annotations are stripped from ordinary reading exports. They are scaffolding for revision, invisible in the finished work.
• On a device with a mouse or trackpad, select text and use the floating toolbar to create an annotation. On a touch screen, select text and use the annotation button in the formatting bar above the on-screen keyboard. Reading, editing, and deleting annotations works everywhere through the panel.
• Restoring a snapshot brings back the text as it was. Spleen removes highlights belonging to annotations you have since deleted. While previewing a snapshot, you cannot edit annotations until you return to the current document.
• Annotations cannot be added or changed in an archived project. Unarchive the project first.