Help

How KnotJot works.

Open it and type. There's nothing to set up and no account to make. This page covers the parts that aren't obvious at first look.

Getting started

Click in the page and type. Each note saves on this device as you write, and the notes you had open come back as tabs next time. The ⋯ menu on the right holds everything else: Paste into, AI, files, folders, view and settings. The half-circle button switches dark and light.

Pasting in

Copy an answer from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Word or Google Docs and press Ctrl V (on a Mac, ⌘ V). Headings, bold, lists, tables, code and maths come through; grey boxes, odd fonts and buttons don't. On a phone, tap Paste in the top bar. Each paste is stamped with when it arrived and where it came from, so you can tell your answers apart later.

Copy for: send a note anywhere, shaped right

Every app reads formatting differently. Word understands real tables; WhatsApp only knows *bold* and _italic_; Notepad knows nothing at all. Copy for shapes the note for where it's going. Pick a target, then paste there as usual.

Say your note holds this AI answer:

Here's what each choice puts on your clipboard:

WhatsApp can't show tables, so each row becomes its own small block that reads well on a phone.

Slack gets its own bold and the table as a lined-up block, so the columns stay straight.

Plain text with no stray * or #: headings are underlined and table columns are lined up, so it reads right in any plain-text box.

For GitHub, Notion, Obsidian or anything else that reads Markdown. If text is selected, Copy for copies just the selection.

Paste into: keep one note per topic

Normally a paste goes where your cursor is. Paste into adds what you copied to the end of a note you pick, as a new section stamped with the time, without you hunting for the note or scrolling to the bottom.

Say you're researching a trip and asking three AIs. Make a note called “Japan trip”. Then, each time you get a useful answer:

1. Copy the answer in ChatGPT (or Claude, or Gemini).
2. In KnotJot, open ⋯, choose Paste into a note… and pick “Japan trip” (type to search if you have lots of notes).
3. The note opens with the answer added at the end, under the time and where it came from.

Pick “A new note” instead to start a fresh one. If your browser won't let KnotJot read the clipboard, it tells you to press Ctrl V, and that paste goes to the end of the note you chose.

Writing

• Type / at the start of a line for blocks: headings, to-do lists, callouts, code, maths, tables and more.
• Link one note to another with [[Note name]]; tag with #words.
• Ctrl P finds any note or runs any command.
• Drop or paste a picture straight into a note.
• Version history (Ctrl P, then type “history”) takes a note back to how it looked earlier.
• Focus mode (Ctrl Shift F) shows only the note; the outline (Ctrl Shift O) lists its headings, links and tags.
• Web addresses turn into links as you type them (after the space or Enter) or paste them. Ctrl+click a link to open it in a new tab; in a note you can only read, a plain click does. Straight after a link appears, Ctrl Z turns it back into plain text. Addresses in code stay plain.
• Find and replace: Ctrl F finds, Ctrl H finds and replaces, with Match case and a count of the matches. Replacing keeps bold and italic, and Ctrl Z in the note takes a replace back. A match has to sit in one run of text: a word that is half bold is not found.
• Spell check underlines misspelt words, never in code or maths. Switch it off or on in ⋯ → Spell check.

Tables

Insert one with the Table button or /table. While your cursor is inside a table, buttons appear in the formatting bar to add or remove rows and columns, and Σ adds a total row that sums each column of numbers. They hide again when you click out, to keep the bar quiet.

Shortcuts

• Ctrl V: paste in clean · Ctrl P: find a note or command
• Ctrl S: save the note to a file or folder
• Ctrl Shift S: save as, picking the name, place and type (.md, .html or .knot)
• Ctrl F: find in the note · Ctrl H: find and replace · Ctrl+click: open a link
• Esc: close any menu

Press Ctrl P and start typing to see every command with its shortcut.

Where your notes live

On this device, inside this browser. KnotJot has no server that keeps your notes, so nobody else can read them, and they're there offline. That also means clearing this site's data in your browser removes them, and another browser or device has its own separate notes. To keep a copy:

• Save (Ctrl S) writes the note into a folder you pick. The ▾ beside Save has Save as… (Ctrl Shift S), where you pick the name and place, and the downloads (.md, .html, or one .knot file with the pictures inside).
• ⋯ → Open folder keeps your notes as Markdown files in a folder you choose (Chrome and Edge on a computer).
• Lock a private note with a password or your fingerprint from the ⋯ menu.

To use KnotJot like an app, choose Install from your browser's menu. It then opens in its own window, even without a connection.

Sign in, and notes on every device

You don't need an account to write. To have your notes on your phone and other computers, click Sign in, then Continue with Google (or ⋯ → Google Drive…). KnotJot makes a KnotJot folder in your own Google Drive and keeps each note there. Sign in the same way on your phone and both show the same notes.

KnotJot can only see the files it made in that folder, never the rest of your Drive. Your notes go straight between your browser and Google; they never reach us.

While you're signed in, changes go to Drive a few seconds after you stop typing. ⋯ → Google Drive: sync now sends them at once. Google asks you to sign in again after a while; until you do, notes keep saving on the device and catch up on the next sync. A note you delete on one device isn't brought back to it by Drive.

Sharing a note. When you're signed in, ⋯ → Share… lets one person read or edit a note from your Drive, until a date if you like. They open the link, sign in with Google and pick the note in Google's window.

To stop, remove KnotJot at myaccount.google.com/connections. Notes on your devices stay, and the copies in your Drive stay yours.

Signing in with email instead of Google is coming later. Leave your email and we'll tell you once, when it's ready.

Something not covered here? Ask us.