A quick tour of Varlig
Varlig is a notebook for your Mac, iPhone and iPad where your writing and your numbers live side by side. Take five minutes here to learn the main ideas, then follow the links to the pages that go deeper.
On a Mac, follow the menus and keyboard shortcuts below. On iPhone or iPad, start with New Note and use the formatting bar while editing; Getting started on iPhone and iPad shows the touch controls. The Markdown and calculations work on every device.
Notes are plain Markdown
Press ⌘N for a new note and start typing. The first line becomes the note’s title, and everything you write is saved as you go.
Every note is Markdown, the simple plain-text format for headings, lists and emphasis. Varlig styles it as you type, so a line starting with ## becomes a heading and - [ ] becomes a checkbox you can tick. Tables, images, link cards, code, Mermaid diagrams and TeX formulas all display right inside the note you’re writing, and your text stays readable and portable.
Go deeper: Markdown at a glance.
Calculations beside your words
A calc block turns part of a note into a calculator. Choose Format › Calculation Block (⌘Y) and type one sum per line. Each answer appears beside its line.
# Weekend in Lisbonhotel = €145 * 2 gives €290.00flights = €89 * 2 gives €178.00total = hotel + flights gives €468.00total / 2 gives €234.00Give a value a name with = and use it further down. Change a number and every answer that depends on it updates straight away. Calc blocks understand percentages, units, currencies, dates and times, as well as everyday phrases such as £64 with 12.5% tip or split £90 among 3 people. A click on any answer copies it.
Go deeper: Your first calculation.
Tags and links
Type a tag such as #recipes or #work/clients anywhere in a note. Tags collect notes in the sidebar, and a slash nests one tag inside another.
Link one note to another with [[Note title]]. Click the link to jump there, and open a note’s backlinks (⌘⇧B) to see every note that points back to it.
Go deeper: Tags, links and backlinks.
Find anything
- Quick Open (⌘O) jumps to a note, tag or section as you type its name.
- Search All Notes (⌘⇧F) filters the note list and accepts filters such as
#work,@todoand"exact phrase". - Find in Note (⌘F) finds text in the current note, including text Varlig recognises in images and PDFs.
Go deeper: Finding anything.
Your notes stay yours
Your library is stored on your Mac, and you don’t need an account. Turn on Sync notes with iCloud in Settings › Sync & Backup, and the same library is on your iPhone and iPad too, kept in step through your own iCloud rather than anyone’s server. Give a sensitive note its own password with Note › Note Password…, and open it later with Touch ID if you like. Lock the whole app with Note › Lock Varlig, and keep a recovery copy with File › Back Up Library….
Go deeper: Privacy and locking, iCloud sync and shared notes, and Import, export and backups.
Take it with you
Varlig for iPhone and iPad reads, edits and calculates the same notes, with calculator keys above the keyboard, a document scanner, widgets that show a live answer, and Quick Capture from the Action button or Siri. Everything you learn here works there too.
Go deeper: Getting started on iPhone and iPad.
Find your way around the window
The main window has three panes: the sidebar with sections and tags, the note list, and the editor. Choose how many you see from the View menu:
| Layout | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Show Editor Only | ⌃1 |
| Show Notes and Editor | ⌃2 |
| Show Tags, Notes and Editor | ⌃3 |
The sidebar gathers notes for you. Tiles at the top show Notes, Today (notes changed today), Pinned, Todo (notes with unfinished tasks), Journal and Reminders, each with its count. Your tags follow, then the places that aren’t tiles, such as Untagged, Locked, Archive and Trash. View › Customize Sidebar… chooses which places are tiles; see The sidebar.
Varlig runs on Macs with Apple silicon on macOS 14 Sonoma and later, and on iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 and later. When you’re ready for the details, Keyboard shortcuts lists every shortcut on one page, Settings explains every option, and What’s new in Varlig 0.0.1 sums up this release.