Export, import and sharing

Your notes are Markdown on your phone too, and they leave as easily as they arrive. This page covers sharing and exporting notes, importing files and other apps’ exports, sharing a note through iCloud, and checking the library’s files.

Send a note to another app

A note’s … menu has two ways to send it on:

• Share sends the note through Messages, Mail, AirDrop, Files or another app as Markdown, Markdown with Attachments, Plain Text with Answers, PDF, HTML, JPEG or EPUB. Markdown with attachments includes the assets folder in one ZIP.
• Copy As offers Plain Text, Plain Text without Answers, Markdown, HTML and Rich Text.

Plain text keeps each calculation’s answer beside it, and every link’s address. A PDF is drawn the way the reader shows the note, on A4 or US Letter paper depending on your region, and starts a new page wherever the note has <!-- pagebreak -->. Answers in every export are the ones on screen, worked out with the note’s own settings and rates.

A protected note can be shared or copied only while it’s open, and the copy isn’t encrypted; Varlig reminds you as you share.

Export several notes

Export N Notes… in a note list’s … menu, such as Export 12 Notes…, exports the notes the list shows, in its order. To export only some, use Select Notes, choose them, and tap Export….

Export As picks how:

The same options as on the Mac apply: Include tags, Include calculation answers and Link exported notes together, which rewrites links between the exported notes so they still work. Calculation Values (CSV) puts every answer from the notes in one spreadsheet, with its note, block, line, value and unit. When it’s done, Varlig shows its report, and Share hands the result to the share sheet: a folder of files as one ZIP, and a single document as it is.

Locked notes are skipped and listed in the report; turn on Include unlocked protected notes to include the ones you’ve opened. See Import, export and backups.

Import files and other apps’ exports

Import Notes… and Import Folder…, in a note list’s … menu, open the Files picker. Import Markdown, plain text, HTML, TextBundle and TextPack, exports from Bear, Drafts, Day One, Evernote and Soulver, and Readwise or Kindle highlights. Markdown and text retain their original text, including front matter. The review offers Keep Original Dates, Use File Names as Titles and Keep Hashtags as Plain Text where applicable.

Import a folder or bundle to bring along the pictures its notes link to. Varlig lists files it cannot import and why before saving. Word, RTF/RTFD and importing directly from an installed Bear or Soulver library still need the Mac; see What stays on the Mac.

Share a note with people

A note can be shared, live, with people you choose, through iCloud: each change either of you makes reaches the other.

Choose Share with People… from a note’s … menu. Choose what the people you invite can do in They Can — Can edit or Can read — then Start Sharing. Invite someone by email address or phone number, or tap Invite with Messages, Mail…. Only people you invite by name can open the note; the link on its own is not a way in. From the same sheet you can see who’s joined, Remove… someone, Copy Link, or Stop Sharing… for everyone at once. Your own note stays in your library either way.

A note someone shared with you appears in Shared in the library, with a mark on its row. Leave Shared Note… removes you, and keeps a read-only copy. Make Editable turns such a copy back into an ordinary note of yours, on this device.

Protected notes can’t be shared, and a shared note can’t be given a password. See iCloud sync and shared notes.

Check the library

Settings › Check Library looks for attachments whose files are missing or empty, links that lost their record, and files nothing uses, and Repair… fixes what it safely can after saving a copy of the library first. See Check Library.

Keep a backup

Your iPhone or iPad backs Varlig’s library up with everything else, in iCloud or on your computer, and sync keeps a full copy on your Mac, where automatic backups keep dated copies of it too.