Some thoughts don't belong in the sentence.
You're reading a recipe you wrote last winter and want to say "try half the salt next time". Or you're going through a lease and want to put "ask about this" next to the clause on subletting.
Typed into the paragraph, the remark interrupts it. Left out, it's forgotten by Thursday.
Paper solved this a long time ago: a post-it, stuck beside the line it's about. Scratchpad has one too, in a note and on a PDF, and it works the same way in both places.
In a Note
The Sticky note button in the toolbar drops one beside the paragraph your caret is in, ready to write on. On a Mac, ⌃⌥S does the same, and typing /sticky gets there from the slash menu.
It lies over the page rather than in the flow of it, so nothing below it moves.
Drag it wherever it reads best: into the margin, between two paragraphs, or across the middle of one. It stays with the paragraph it was dropped beside. When the note above grows, the post-it travels down with its line instead of being left pointing at the wrong thing.
While you're writing on one:
- The corners resize it.
- A small handle turns it, so it can sit a little crooked, the way a real one does.
- The gear on the paper holds the colour, the size of the writing, and whether it's handwritten or typed.
It starts yellow and handwritten, because that's what a post-it looks like.
An empty one is thrown away when you click off it. A change of mind leaves nothing to tidy up.
On a PDF
The same post-it works on the pages of a PDF, in the full-screen reader.
Stick a post-it in the bar along the top (or N) puts one on the page you're reading. It has the same papers, sizes, and two hands as the one in a note, and it covers what's under it, the way paper does.
This is where a margin note earns the most, because a PDF has no paragraph to type your remark into. A contract with three clauses to query, a set of plans from the contractor for the kitchen, a form someone wants back by Friday.
A post-it beside the paragraph says what you meant to say about it, right where you'll see it again.
Where They Live
The two look the same. Where they're kept is different, and that's on purpose.
| In a note | On a PDF | |
|---|---|---|
| Add one | Toolbar, ⌃⌥S, or /sticky | Stick a post-it, or N |
| Kept | Inside the note | In Scratchpad, beside the file |
| Outside Scratchpad | A quoted aside in Markdown | Burned into the reader's download |
A post-it in a note is part of the note. It syncs, it undoes, it shows up in version history, its words are searchable, and the assistant can read them. Exported to Markdown, where there's no margin to pin it in, it becomes a quoted aside.
A post-it on a PDF lives in Scratchpad, beside the file, and never inside it.
The PDF you uploaded is not rewritten.
That matters when the file is someone else's. The copy of the lease you send back is the one they sent you.
When you do want your marks in the file, the download button in the reader gives you a copy with them burned into the pages. The one on the PDF's row in the note gives you the original, untouched.
The details are in reading and marking up a PDF.
What It Isn't
It isn't a comment thread.
Nobody replies to a post-it, and there's no list of open ones to resolve. It's a remark you leave for yourself, or for whoever reads the page next, and that's all it tries to be.
I think that's the right size for it. A thread wants an answer. A post-it just wants to be seen.
Most of the notes I keep are a conversation with a later version of me.
A post-it is the part of that conversation that happens in the margin.
