Note Templates

A note template is a reusable starting point: an interview questionnaire, a scene-planning checklist, a worldbuilding form, anything you fill in the same way over and over. Save one once and it's available from every book and series on this computer, not just the one you saved it from.

Save a note as a template

Right-click (or Ctrl+click on Mac) any note and choose Save as Template, or click the template button at the end of the note's formatting toolbar. A copy of the note's title, content, and color is saved on this computer, ready to use in any book. The original note stays exactly where it was.

To start one from scratch instead, open the Templates folder, right-click an empty spot, and choose New Template.

A few things don't carry over, on purpose, because a template has to work in every book:

• Tags stay with the note, since other books won't have the same tags
• @Mentions (the links you make by typing @ and a name) turn into plain text, since the characters and places they point to only exist in one book
• Pictures are left out

Use a template

There are three ways to create a note from a template. Each one gives you an ordinary note in your current folder, with the template's title, content, and color.

• The + Note button in the toolbar above your notes, then From Template...
• Right-click empty space among your notes and choose Add from Template
• Right-click empty space in the folder list on the left and choose Add from Template

Edit or remove a template

Once you have at least one template, a Templates folder appears in the folder list of the Notebook (the page where your notes live), below your own folders. It can't be renamed, moved, or deleted, and it disappears on its own when you delete your last template.

Inside it, templates look and behave like any other notes, including every view mode (Cards, Large Cards, and List), except that each one shows a small template icon beside its title where a note shows its note icon. Opening one shows a banner reading "Template: changes here update the template for every book", because it does. While you edit a template, @mentions and pictures aren't available, for the same reason they're left out when you save one.

Right-click a template for Rename, Change Color, or Delete Template. Deleting asks you to confirm first, and removing a template never touches the notes you already made from it.

Hide the Templates folder

If you don't use templates, click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the toolbar above your notes and turn on Hide Templates Folder. Penpoint remembers this for every book, so you only set it once. If you sync your settings with Penpoint Cloud, your other computers follow along too. Your templates are kept; turn the option off any time to reach them again.

Templates in Minipen

Minipen (the slim sidebar on the right while you write in Manuscript Mode) shows the Templates folder as the first folder in its list. You can open and edit templates there, create a note from one through the + menu, and hide the folder from Minipen's own gear menu. The template button on a note's toolbar works there too. Renaming or deleting a template is done from the main Notebook.

Templates and Penpoint Cloud

With Penpoint Cloud, your templates follow you to your other computers. Signing in to a different Cloud account adds this computer's templates to that account, alongside any it already has. Signing out never removes templates from this computer.

Templates sync together with your settings, so they stop syncing if you turn off Sync my settings across all my computers in Settings > Penpoint Cloud. Each computer keeps the templates it already has.

Good to know

• Templates don't belong to any one book, so they stay out of a book's search results, @mention suggestions, export, and backup files. They're kept on this computer, and with Penpoint Cloud on your other computers too.
• If you already keep your own folder named "Templates", it's untouched. The two sit side by side; in the Notebook, the shared one is always the last folder in the list.

For everything else notes can do, see Working with Notes.