Working with Blocks

Blocks are the fundamental unit within Clover. They are individual pieces of content on a page. They could be as simple as a line of text or as complex as an interactive widget. Tasks are blocks. Images are blocks. All of the Pages in your workspace are a composition of different types of blocks.

Some of the many types of blocks you can create.

Creating Blocks

Blocks are easy to create and edit. Simply typing in a document will edit a block. Pressing Return will insert a new block. These are text blocks, which are the most basic block type in Clover.

There are a number of ways to create other block types. For example, typing [] followed a Space will convert the block into a task. Tasks are an example of a complex block type. They can be checked off or canceled, color-coded, and scheduled.

You can explore different types of blocks by typing / which pulls up the Slash Inserter. From here you can simply pick a block type and Clover will insert it for you. In addition to standard block types such as headings, lists, and images we also offer a number of other blocks such as file uploads, LaTeX equations, color swatches, table of contents, and are continually adding others.

Note that Surface docs have the same block types as Docs, but have many additional blocks to support visual workflows – sticky notes, sketches, media, smart lines, and more.

Use the / inserter to create different block types

Type / anywhere you can enter text to pull up the Slash Inserter. From here you can choose the type of block you would like to insert. As you type, the options will filter down. Use the arrow keys to move up and down the list.

Use the Slash Inserter to insert different block types.

Formatting with Markdown

There are a number of supported Markdown shortcuts for quickly formatting text.

Use markdown to quickly format and morph blocks.

Start a block with any of these sequences followed by a space to convert the block to the corresponding type.

#	Heading 1
##	Heading 2
###	Heading 3
- or * or +	Bulleted List
```	Code Block
>	Blockquote

The following commands can be used within a block for inline formatting.

*bold*	Bold
_italic_	Italic
`code`	Code

Link to pages using @ or create new ones using [[

Type @ anywhere you can enter text to bring up the Page Inserter. As you type, the page list will filter to match the text you entered. Select a page from the list to insert a link to it. This will also create a backlink to the current page within the selected page. You can also type dates using plain language to insert a link to that day's Daily Notes.

Typing [[ will give you similar functionality, but also allows you to create a new Doc or Surface from the list using the options at the bottom.

Insert links to pages using the Page Inserter.

Jump to blocks using the Outline

Documents have an outline to the left of the content in the form of dots. Each dot represents a header in the document with Heading 1 being a larger dot than Heading 2 and 3. Hover over the dots to expand the outline to see the headings. Click on a heading to jump to it in the document.

Quickly jump around docs using the Outline.

Create collapsible sections and sub-tasks

Pressing Tab to indent a block will automatically nest it beneath the block above it. This will create a relationship between the blocks. A collapse arrow will be added to the parent block, which allows you to hide the nested content.

Nested blocks can be dragged together as a group and nested task blocks will inherit due dates and status from the parent task.

Press Tab or drag and drop blocks to nest them.