Creating Your First Document

This guide walks you through creating a Markdown document in MarkNode from scratch. By the end you will have a structured document with headings, and you will have seen how those headings are reflected live in the mind map.

Step 1: Open or Create a Project

A MarkNode project is an ordinary folder on your computer. Every Markdown file inside that folder (and its subfolders) becomes part of the project.

To open an existing folder, choose File > Open Project Folder from the menu bar, then select the folder you want to use.

To start fresh, select New Project from the welcome screen, choose a location, and MarkNode will create an empty folder ready to use.

Tip: If you already have a folder of Markdown files — notes, a journal, a personal wiki — you can open it directly as a MarkNode project without any migration or conversion.

Step 2: Create a New File

With your project open, press Cmd+N on macOS or Ctrl+N on Windows and Linux to create a new file. An editable name field appears inline in the file explorer. Type a name — for example my-first-document — and press Return. If you leave off the extension, MarkNode adds .md for you.

The file is created inside the currently selected folder in the file explorer and opens immediately in the editor, ready for you to start writing.

Step 3: Write Some Markdown

Click in the editor and start typing. Markdown uses plain text with a few simple conventions for formatting. The most important ones for structure are headings.

A # at the start of a line creates a top-level heading. ## creates a second-level heading, and ### creates a third-level heading:

# My Document Title

## Introduction

This is the opening section of the document.

## Main Ideas

### First Idea

Details about the first idea go here.

### Second Idea

Details about the second idea go here.

## Conclusion

A brief summary.

As you type each heading, watch the mind map panel on the right. You do not need to save — it updates live as you write.

Step 4: Watch the Mind Map Update

Each heading you add becomes a node in the mind map. The document title (# heading) sits at the center, with ## headings branching out from it, and ### headings branching from those.

This gives you an instant visual overview of your document’s structure. If the mind map feels too crowded, try the outline view instead — press Cmd+Shift+L on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+L on Windows and Linux to switch to a nested list view of the same headings.

Tip: A well-structured mind map is a good signal that your document is logically organized. If the branches feel unbalanced or a section has far more nodes than others, it may be worth reviewing whether the content is proportional.

Step 5: Navigate via the Mind Map

Click any node in the mind map. The editor scrolls to the corresponding heading and places the cursor there. This is especially useful in long documents where scrolling through the editor would take time.

The same works in outline view — click any entry in the outline list to jump to that heading in the editor.

The currently active heading (the one nearest the cursor in the editor) is highlighted in both the mind map and the outline as you move through the document.

Step 6: Save Your Work

Press Cmd+S on macOS or Ctrl+S on Windows and Linux to save the file. When a file has unsaved changes, its tab shows an asterisk (*) and italic styling, which clear once the file is saved.

MarkNode also supports auto-save. When auto-save is enabled, your changes are written to disk after a short pause following your last keystroke. You can configure auto-save behavior in Settings.

Step 7: Switch Between Mind Map and Outline View

Take a moment to try both views:

  • Press Cmd+Shift+M / Ctrl+Shift+M to switch to the mind map
  • Press Cmd+Shift+L / Ctrl+Shift+L to switch to the outline

Both views show the same structure drawn from your headings. The mind map is useful for getting a spatial sense of the document; the outline is useful for quickly locating a specific section in a long file.

You can leave whichever view is more useful to you open while you write, or collapse the panel entirely when you want to focus on the text.

What to Explore Next

Now that you have created your first document, here are a few things worth exploring:

  • Formatting — Markdown supports bold, italic, links, images, lists, tables, and code blocks. The editor applies syntax highlighting as you type.
  • Multiple files — add more .md files to your project and organize them into subfolders using the file explorer.
  • Git integration — if your project folder is a Git repository, MarkNode shows file status in the explorer and provides Git actions — staging, committing, pushing, pulling — in the Source Control panel.
  • Keyboard shortcuts — a full list of shortcuts is available in Keyboard Shortcuts.