Notes don’t get a leading bullet, only Topics do. Notes are shown in a slightly smaller, lighter colored font directly below the Topic they are associated with.

Proper Usage

Zavala supports inline notes. By notes, I mean the kind that you might write in the margins of a book as you are studying it. The main difference is that Zavala makes room for these notes inline when you need to add them.

Suppose you are watching a lecture or presentation. As you are capturing the contents of the lecture or presentation, you are capturing them as Topics in an Outline. Since things are moving fast, you just capture what you can as Topics and keep moving. Later you might want to expound on a Topic. This is a good time to add Note to that Topic to give it more detail.

Alternate Usage

While Zavala is a dedicated outliner, we do support using it as a structured word processor. We do that by leveraging the Notes field and treating the Outline differently when exporting or printing it. All you have to do is put content into the Notes field and select Print Doc, Export PDF Doc, or Export Markdown Doc.

When the Outline is processed in this manner, the Topic is used for a Heading and the Note is used for paragraphs. Each level of indentation gets smaller Heading font than its parent, while the paragraph font stays the same.

If you’ve ever used the Microsoft Word outline mode, you are familiar with this concept. Topics are headings and Notes are content when you switch to another mode.

You may have noticed that Microsoft Word doesn’t make a very good outliner. Well, Zavala doesn’t make a very good word processor. I certainly wouldn’t try to make a resume or business letter with it.

Zavala is good at starting a paper or document though. You can get your ideas outlined with quite a bit of detail. You may then want to export your Outline as a Markdown document and import it into a dedicated writing application.