The editor: sections, blocks and saving

A manual is a list of sections, and a section holds blocks. You add a block, move it, keep it off the public page or copy it into another manual, and the editor saves by itself.

Where the editor is

WhereDashboard, Brand manual, Content

One page edits one manual. If the brand has more than one, Brand manual (opens in a new tab) shows them as cards, and the manual title in the header switches between them. Content is the editor; Settings holds the address, the template and who may see the manual, covered in Design controls, Who may see a manual and Addresses. Beside them are Preview, Device preview, Download PDF and, for anybody who may publish, Publish or Unpublish. The PDF is made from the manual as it stands, published or not; see The manual as a PDF.

The section list

The list beside the editor is the map of the manual, and it stacks above the sections on a narrow screen. Clicking a row jumps to that section. A row can be marked hidden (kept off the public page), empty (no blocks yet) or 3/5 (blocks that hold something, out of the blocks in the section). Under the list is a count of the sections whose blocks are all filled in; see Completeness and governance.

Search sections narrows the list to the sections that hold your words, matching the title and the text inside. It finds sections, not blocks, so open the section it names to find the block. It does not read internal or empty blocks, and it reads each section to 600 characters, so a word far down a very long section may be past the end.

Sections

A section is a heading, an optional line of intro, and any number of blocks. + New section sits at the top of the list and at the foot of the column, and adds a section last, titled Section, with nothing in it. The title is the large field in the section header: click it and type. Under it, Intro is a short line of context drawn under the heading on the public page.

Every manual is created with a Cover section at the top, holding the opening heading and background rather than blocks. It has no block picker, and Duplicate section makes no copy of it.

Adding a block

1. Open the section and press + Add a block at the bottom of it.
2. Pick from the 41 kinds, arranged in 7 groups. Every button carries the block's name and one line saying what it is for.
3. The block is added at the end of the section and opens by itself.

A manual started from a template already has sections full of empty blocks. See The presentation templates.

What a closed block tells you

Blocks are closed when the page loads, and clicking anywhere along the row opens and closes one. The row carries the kind of block, a few words of summary read from the content, and two markers: Empty, nothing filled in yet and left off the public page, and Internal, for the team only. Open a block and the first field is its Anchor, then the fields of that kind, listed in Every block, and what it holds.

Moving and reordering

• Sections move with the up and down arrows in the section header, one place per press.
• Blocks move with the up and down arrows in the block row, or by dragging the handle at the left of the row onto another block. The handle is not drawn on a phone, where the arrows are the way to do it.
• Entries inside a block, such as one color or one logo variant, have their own Up, Down, Duplicate and Remove beside them.

A block can only be moved inside its own section. To get a block into another section of the same manual, add it where you want it and delete the original. Reordering never changes an address anybody has already shared: sections and blocks keep the anchor they were given on their first save.

Duplicating and deleting a block

Both are in the block's ... menu. Duplicate makes a full copy directly after the original, with its own anchor on the next save. Delete block removes the block at once, with no confirmation, unlike a section.

Keeping something off the public page

Copying a block into another manual

Open the block's ... menu, choose Copy to another manual, pick the manual in the Manual list and press Copy. You land in that manual, at the new section the copy was put in. The menu item appears only when the brand has another manual to copy into, and copying works only between manuals of the same brand.

The copy is the block as last saved, so wait for the indicator to say Saved first. It lands in a new section at the end of the target manual, carrying the title of the section it came from, and hidden from the public page. Files are not copied: pictures point into the brand's library, which serves both manuals.

Anchors, the addresses inside a page

Every section and every block gets a word in the page address the first time it is saved, and keeps it after that. A section's is the Link anchor field in the internal panel, which reads Set from the title on save until then; a block's is the Anchor field at the top of the opened block, which reads set on save. Both take lowercase letters, digits and hyphens, up to 48 characters. If you change one, a link to the old word no longer lands, so change it before you hand the link out. Writing a link to an anchor is covered in Text, headings, anchors and links.

Owner, review date and internal notes

Under the blocks, Owner, review date and internal notes opens a panel holding a status, the person or team responsible, a review date and a free note. Only the link anchor in it is public. Once the status is past Draft it is drawn as a badge in the section header, as In review or Approved, and every section's status and review date is collected on Governance (opens in a new tab).

How and when a change is saved

The editor saves by itself. One second after you stop changing anything, the whole section is written: its title, its intro, every block in it, the internal fields and whether it is on the public page. There is nothing to submit. The line at the foot of each section reads one of four things.

Save now, beside that line, writes immediately. Press it before you copy a block into another manual, before you close a laptop, and any time the indicator says Not saved.

What a save reaches

On a published manual, a save shows at once on the public page and in the API. An unpublished manual is only seen by the team. If the manual is set to be reviewed first, visitors keep seeing the version that was last published until somebody presses Publish changes, and a banner above the editor counts the sections that have changed since; see Reviewing changes before they go live.

A single section may hold up to 2 MB of content. Past that the save is refused and a message asks you to remove some content or split the section in two. If two people edit the same section at the same time, the later save wins, so work in different sections and use Comments on a block to hand one over.

Who may edit, and when the editor is read only

Everything on this page needs the permission Edit sections and content. Without it the manual still opens and reads, and the buttons that change it are not drawn. On Business a role you build yourself may hold the same permission; see Roles and Custom roles.

A manual the plan no longer covers after a downgrade is read only for everybody. A line at the top of the page says so. The manual still opens, exports and serves its public page unchanged, and nothing is deleted. Choosing it as one of the active manuals, or upgrading, makes it editable again. See What a downgrade freezes.

Where to go next

• Text, headings, anchors and links for writing inside a block.
• Publishing and unpublishing for getting the manual in front of people.