Notes¶

This page is for anyone at the firm who writes things down: research outlines, practice guides, interview notes, working memos. It covers the firm's shared library of notes, the notes kept on a matter, and the editor you write both in.

Two kinds of note¶

The Library¶

Click Library in the sidebar. Folders is on the left and the notes in the folder you picked are on the right.

• Inbox holds library notes that are in no folder. The page starts here. All Folders lists every library note.
• Click a folder to list its notes. Click the same folder again to return to Inbox. The arrow beside a folder shows its subfolders.

The list shows 20 notes to a page. The sort buttons in the header reorder it. Keyword Search matches note titles only, within the folder you are looking at.

Work with folders¶

1. Click the + button beside Folders. A form headed New Folder opens.
2. Choose the Parent Folder, or choose None (root level) for a top-level folder.
3. Enter the Folder Name (50 characters at most) and click Submit.

The folder appears in the list. Folders nest four levels deep, and two folders in the same place cannot share a name.

Each folder has a menu, on the three-dot button or by right-clicking the folder: New note, New subfolder, Edit (name and parent), Move and Delete. Right-click Inbox for New note and New folder. You can also drag a folder onto another folder, or onto Inbox to make it top-level.

Delete opens Delete Folder. It counts the subfolders and the notes inside, including the notes in subfolders ("This folder and its subfolders contain 3 notes."), and asks what to do with them. For an empty folder the choice is Cancel or Delete. Otherwise the buttons depend on what is inside.

When there are notes anywhere inside:

When there are subfolders and no notes:

Work with notes¶

1. Click the folder the note belongs in (or Inbox).
2. Click the + button at the top right of the list.

A note named "Untitled" opens in the editor, in a new browser tab. The folder menu's New note does the same.

• Rename: click the title, then Rename. Change Title in Rename Note and click Submit.
• Move: click the title, then Move, pick a folder (or Inbox) and click Move. Or drag the row onto a folder.
• Several at once: tick the boxes at the left. The toolbar then offers Importance, Move and a delete button. Dragging a ticked row moves every ticked note.
• Delete: click the title, then Delete, and confirm.

A matter's Notes tab¶

Open the matter, click Case, then Notes. The tab lists every note on the matter, most recently updated first. It does not show folders (the editor does).

• Add: click the + button. An "Untitled" note opens in the editor in a new browser tab.
• Open: click the title, then Open.
• Rename: click the title, then Edit Details. Edit Note has Matter, Category and Title. Click Submit.
• Category: click the category in the first column to change it: Analysis, Drafting, Guide, Interview, Issue, Note or Research.
• Label: click the title, then Add Label.
• Delete: click the title, then Delete, and confirm.

To narrow the list, use the category menu (All Categories), the Importance menu (that level and above), Keyword Search (titles and text), or Filter, which adds Label and Order By. An All Topics menu appears when notes on the matter have a topic. The AI can set a topic when it creates a note.

The editor¶

The editor opens in its own browser tab: from Open or the + button in either list, from a note in the sidebar Search, or from Editor at the top right of the Library, which opens the note you looked at last (or, when there is no note you can open yet, a page with a New note button).

Find your way around¶

The left panel has three tabs, shown as icons: Library (the library's folders and notes), Matters (each open matter you can see, with its own folders and notes) and Recent (the last seven notes you opened). A matter that is not Open is listed on Matters only while one of its notes is open in the editor. Click a note to open it in the middle of the page. Above the list are New note, New folder (on the Library tab), Search notes and Collapse/Expand all. The right panel is the Outline: the note's headings, from Heading 2 down. Click a heading to jump to it. Each panel has a button at its outer top corner to hide it, and you can drag a panel's inner edge to resize it.

Right-click in the left panel to organise notes without leaving the editor:

A new folder appears as "Untitled" with its name ready to type over. You can drag a note or folder onto a folder. While you drag, Move to root (or Move to matter root) appears at the bottom of the list. To rename a note, click its title at the top of the note, type, and press Enter. A title another note in the same folder already has is refused, with a message saying so.

New note above the list follows where you are. On the Library tab it creates the note at the top level of the library. On the Matters and Recent tabs it creates the note beside the one you have open: at the top level of that note's matter, or of the library if the open note is a library note. To choose where a note goes, right-click the folder or matter instead.

Saving¶

Kosmos saves by itself, two seconds after you stop typing, and again when you switch notes or close the tab. Press Ctrl+S to save at once. The disk icon at the left of the toolbar is tinted while there are unsaved changes. Hover over it to read Saved, Unsaved changes or Saving.... The line under the title shows when the note was last saved and by whom.

Format text¶

The toolbar has Undo, Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, Heading 2, Heading 3, Heading 4, Bullet List, Numbered List, Blockquote, Table, Insert source and a highlighter with a choice of colours. On a narrow window some of these move into the More actions menu (the three dots).

You can also type Markdown and the editor formats it as you go:

On a Mac, use Cmd in place of Ctrl. Saving, the two searches and the shortcuts list work wherever the cursor is. The other shortcuts act only while the cursor is in the note's text. More actions → Keyboard shortcuts, or Ctrl+?, lists the rest. See also Keyboard shortcuts.

In a matter note, Insert source searches the matter's highlights and documents and inserts the one you click as a citation. Click a document citation to open the document. Click a highlight citation for View Detail and View Source. See Documents and Timeline, witnesses and highlights.

Good to know:

• The editor has no web links. A Markdown link that is imported becomes its text followed by the address in parentheses, and so does one that is pasted, the next time the note opens.
• A note is stored as Markdown, so characters that Markdown uses are read as formatting the next time the note opens, even where the editor left them alone as you typed or pasted. Two asterisks on one line (two footnote marks, for example) disappear and the text between them turns italic. A line that begins with #, - or > and a space becomes a heading, a bullet or a quote. To keep such characters as they are, put the text in inline code. Text in angle brackets (an email address copied from a message header) and underscores inside a word (a file name) are kept as typed. The one exception is <br> on its own, which becomes a line break (it is how a table cell keeps a second line). A Markdown image reference (![plan](address)) is kept as typed too; the editor shows no images.

Tables¶

1. Click Table in the toolbar. A second bar appears.
2. Click Insert table. A three-by-three table with a header row appears.
3. With the cursor in a cell, use the bar's buttons to add or delete a row or column, align a column, switch the header row on or off, or click Delete table.

You can also type a table: a line such as | Name | Date |, then a line | --- | --- |, then Enter. A table pasted as plain text in that form, or copied from a web page or word processor, becomes a table too. Cells cannot be merged and columns cannot be resized.

For a second line inside a cell, press Shift+Enter: the line break is kept. Paragraphs made with Enter inside one cell are joined into a single line the next time the note opens.

Import, export and print¶

More actions has Import from markdown (upload a file or paste text, to add to the note or to replace it), Export to markdown (a download named after the note) and Print (the note alone, without the panels).

Move a note¶

• Within the library: drag it onto a folder, in the Library or in the editor, or use Move in the Library.
• Within a matter: drag it between that matter's folders on the editor's Matters tab.
• To another matter: in the editor, right-click the note and click Properties. In Note Properties, choose the Matter and click Move. Or change Matter in Edit Details on the Notes tab. The note lands at the top level of the new matter. Both lists offer the open matters you can see, and the matter the note is on now.
• Between a matter and the library: not possible. Copy the text into a new note.

Dragging never carries a note or folder from one matter to another.

Find a note¶

• In the editor, click Search notes or press Ctrl+K. Search Notes lists your Recent notes until you type two characters, then Title matches (the folder and matter names count too) and Full-text matches with the words in context. All, Library, Matters and, on a matter note, the matter's name narrow the search. Opening a full-text match jumps to the words in the note.
• Search in the sidebar lists matching notes under Notes.
• Search & Replace in the editor toolbar (Ctrl+H) works inside the open note.

When two people edit the same note¶

Kosmos does not merge edits, and it does not show you that someone else has the note open. The first save wins. If someone else (or the AI) saves the note while you have changes of your own, your next save is refused and a banner appears: "This note was changed somewhere else (another tab, another person or the AI). Editing is paused."

While the banner shows, the note and its title are read-only, and the disk icon becomes a warning triangle. The formatting buttons, Import from markdown, the Replace buttons and the table bar are hidden until you reload. You can still select and copy text.

1. Select your unsaved text and copy it.
2. Click Reload latest. The note is replaced with the saved version, and what you had typed but not saved is gone.
3. Paste your text back where it belongs.

Good to know:

• If you only have the note open to read, it does not refresh when a colleague saves. Reload the page to see their changes.

Notes and the AI¶

This section applies when your firm has set up AI (see AI). Without it, notes are never sent anywhere.

Every library note is offered to the AI on every matter, and a matter's notes are offered on that matter. There is no setting to hold a note back. Kosmos writes a short summary of each library note in the background, which the AI uses to choose the notes worth reading. When you tell it to in a matter's chat, the AI can create a note on that matter and add to or rewrite a matter or library note. See AI chat.

Claude Desktop, if your administrator has connected it, can read and search your notes, and can write to a note for 24 hours after you click the sparkles button in that note's toolbar.

Deleted notes and earlier versions¶