Write your first note

Press ⌘N. That’s a new note. Start typing.

Markdown, briefly

Pellet notes are written in markdown — plain text with a few punctuation marks that mean “make this a heading” or “make this bold”. You don’t have to learn it, because Pellet formats as you type, but it’s useful to know it’s there.

The ones worth knowing:

You type	You get
# Big heading	A heading
## Smaller heading	A smaller one
**bold**	bold
*italic*	italic
- item	A bullet
1. item	A numbered list
- [ ] thing	A checkbox you can tick
> quote	An indented quote
`code`	Fixed-width text

The point of markdown is that it’s still readable when you open the file in anything else — Notepad, TextEdit, an email. Nothing is hidden in a format only Pellet can read.

Formatting without typing symbols

Two shortcuts if you’d rather not memorise punctuation:

• Type / at the start of a line for a menu of headings, lists, tables and links. /date and /time insert today’s date or the current time.

Tables are edited in place, cell by cell — and cells are full citizens of the editor: bold, code, highlights, links, tags and wikilinks all render inside them, [[ and # offer the same completions the note body gets, selecting text summons the formatting toolbar, and ShiftEnter starts a new line inside the cell. Bullet, numbered and checklist lines in a cell render as real lists, and a cell’s checkboxes tick with a click.

• Select some text and a small toolbar appears above it: bold, italic, strikethrough, highlight, inline code, then bullet list, numbered list and checklist, and a link button. The list buttons apply to every line the selection touches, so you can turn a block of prose into a checklist in one go.

0:23

The selection toolbar, and ⌘B / ⌘I

Transcript

Formatting without leaving the text. Select anything and a toolbar appears just above it. Bold, italic, strikethrough, highlight, inline code, headings and links. Or skip the mouse entirely. Command B for bold, command I for italic, and the rest have shortcuts too.

Wrapping a selection

With text selected, typing a bracket or a marker wraps it rather than replacing it. Select a phrase and press [ and you get [phrase] — with the phrase still selected, so pressing [ again gives [[phrase]], a wikilink.

That second press is the point. Markdown’s doubled markers need no special handling:

Select a phrase and press	You get
* twice	**bold**
_ twice	__phrase__
` once	`code`
` three times	a fenced code block
~ once	~~struck~~
= once	==highlighted==

The full set of characters that wrap is ( [ { < " ' ` * _ ~ =. The last two are inserted doubled, because a single ~word~ or =word= means nothing in markdown.

With nothing selected this does nothing at all — typing ( in a sentence will not conjure a ). Ordinary typing is untouched.

0:24

Wrap a selection by typing

Transcript

Select something, then type the punctuation. With text selected, typing a bracket, a quote, an asterisk or a backtick wraps the selection instead of replacing it. Press it twice for the doubled forms. Two asterisks for bold, two brackets for a wikilink, three backticks for a code fence.

Code

Three backticks start a code block. As soon as you type them, Pellet offers the language — start typing py, js, yml and pick from the list. Everything offered is something Pellet can actually colour, so a language from that menu never leaves you with a block that comes out looking like plain text.

Code is coloured as you write it and stays coloured in reading view, in the same colours either way. Around 150 languages are recognised.

In reading view each block gets a small strip along the top with the language it worked out, a Copy button, and Wrap — for the one long line you would rather read whole than scroll sideways. Copy gives you the code and nothing else.

Two settings under Settings → General → Code blocks:

• Line numbers — down the side of every block. They are drawn rather than inserted, so copying still gives you just the code.
• Wrap long lines — the default for every block; the strip’s own Wrap button overrides it one block at a time.

A block with no language after the backticks is left as plain text, deliberately — and so is one naming something Pellet has no colours for. Guessing would mangle whatever you pasted in.

0:25

Code blocks

Transcript

Code that reads like code. Name the language after the fence and Pellet highlights it. Around a hundred and fifty of them, with the name completing as you type. Hover a block for a copy button. And in reading view the block's own header carries line numbers and wrapping, so you change them while you are looking at the code.

Maths

Write a formula in the middle of a sentence between single dollar signs — $E = mc^2$ — and it renders where it sits. On its own line, put it between double dollar signs:

$$
\int_0^\infty e^{-x} \, dx = 1
$$

It’s KaTeX, so the syntax is the one you already know from LaTeX. Formulas render as you write in live preview and in reading view, and they carry into an exported document. A dollar sign in ordinary prose — $40 — isn’t treated as maths.

0:26

Maths and Mermaid diagrams

Transcript

Maths and diagrams, written as text. Dollar signs around an expression render it inline. Two dollar signs put it on its own line. It is LaTeX, so it looks like a textbook. And a Mermaid block becomes a diagram. Add a node, step out of the block, and it has already redrawn itself.

Diagrams

A code block marked mermaid draws instead of listing:

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  Idea --> Draft --> Note
```

Flowcharts, sequence diagrams, Gantt charts, pie charts and the rest of Mermaid’s vocabulary all work. The diagram redraws as you type, follows your light or dark theme, and if the syntax is wrong Pellet says so in the block rather than showing you nothing.

Callouts

Start a quote with a type in square brackets and it becomes a coloured, titled panel instead of a plain quote:

> [!tip] Keep this in mind
> The rest of the note goes here, quoted the same way.

Pellet knows Obsidian’s set of thirteen types — note, tip, warning, danger, question and the rest, each with its own colour and icon — and a type it doesn’t recognise still becomes a callout, styled as a plain note. This is Obsidian’s own syntax, so a callout written in one app renders the same in the other.

0:24

Callouts

Transcript

Pull something out of the page. A callout is a quote with a type in brackets. Note, tip, warning, danger, question and more, each with its own colour and icon. Add a minus and it starts folded. Click the title to open it, which makes callouts a decent way to hide an answer or a long aside.

Folding

Add a + or a - after the type and the callout can be folded shut: > [!faq]- Question starts collapsed, > [!faq]+ Question starts expanded. A callout with no + or - has no chevron and never folds, which is why every callout you already had keeps working exactly as it did.

Hover a foldable callout and a chevron appears beside its title. In reading view, clicking anywhere on the title row toggles it, with a smooth open and close. In the editor, it’s the part of the title’s line past the title text that toggles — the title itself stays clickable, so you can still edit it with a mouse.

The marker only says how a callout starts. Folding one while reading or writing changes nothing in the file, so reopening the note always starts from the marker again.

Nesting

A callout inside a callout — one quote marker deeper — becomes a callout of its own, indented and tinted a shade further so the nesting is visible:

> [!question] Outer
> > [!tip] Inner

Titles

A callout’s title is inline markdown like any other line, so > [!tip] See **this** and [[That]] bolds “this” and links to “That” rather than showing the raw punctuation.

Edit the markdown

Hover a callout’s title in live preview and a small </> button appears at its right edge. Click it and the cursor lands at the end of the title, which reveals the raw > [!type] Title text for editing — the same rule that shows any construct’s markdown once your cursor is on it.

How it looks

Colour, icon and corner radius are appearance rather than content, so they’re set once for every callout under Settings → Appearance → Custom formatting → Callouts — see Making it look right. Corner radius there rounds every callout, of every type, in both the reading view and the editor; 0 keeps them square.

Pasting a video or track link

Paste a YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify or Apple Podcasts/Music link into a note and a small bar offers three things to do with it:

• Embed — a card that turns into the provider’s own player when you click it
• Link — a clickable link, titled with the video or episode name
• Text — leave the address as plain text, which is what you pasted

Text is the do-nothing option; the URL is already in the note. Any other link pastes as text as usual, with no bar.

Editing and reading

Pellet shows formatting while you write — the heading looks like a heading, but the # is still there when you put your cursor back on the line. Nothing is hidden from you.

If you want a clean read with no markup at all, ⌘E switches to reading view and back.

The fields at the very top of a note — due dates, tags, whatever else you keep there — are edited through the Properties panel rather than by typing the block by hand.

0:25

Markdown that gets out of the way

Transcript

Pellet writes plain markdown. You just don't have to look at it. Formatting takes effect as you type. The syntax only appears when your cursor is inside it, and hides again when you move away. Source mode shows the raw file whenever you want it. And reading view hides all of it.

Saving

There isn’t a save button. Pellet writes to disk as you go, and keeps a history of earlier versions in case you need to go back.