Understanding the General Docs Structure
When it comes to managing your docs in our platform, it's important to understand the general structure of our Docs Feature. There are three main places where a doc can live: private docs, space docs, and project docs.
Private docs
Private docs are similar to private projects in that they can only be seen by you until you choose to share them with another user or move them to a space or project. These docs are only accessible to you and are not visible to anyone else in your workspace.
Space Docs
Spaces can be seen as folders within a workspace. These are where docs are managed and organized within a specific workspace. You can create multiple spaces within one workspace, and each doc can only exist in one space at a time. Docs can be moved from spaces to spaces or even into a project.
Project Docs
Project docs are connected to a specific project and can only be accessed through that project. These docs are always linked to the project and will remain there until they are moved to a space or made private. This ensures that all project-related docs are easily accessible and organized within the project. Project docs have special features regarding that project, like linking a task to a doc for status tracking.
Trash
For each place, where docs can exist, there is a dedicated trash section, which stores docs that have been moved to trash. They are only accessible via the sidebar. This means that there is a trash for private docs , a trash for space docs and a trash for project docs. Docs in a trash can be restored (up to one year) or can be perma-deleted individually.
☝️ Now that you understand the general structure of our documentation system, you can easily manage and organize your docs in a way that works best for you and your team. If you have any further questions or need assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team. 🚀
Docs main page
The docs main page is the central hub for navigating and working with your docs. It provides easy access to your docs and allows you to organize them into different spaces and projects.
Sidebar
The docs sidebar is the main element for navigating, nesting and working with your docs. It is located on the left side of the screen and provides quick access to all of your docs, favorites, trash and docs that have been shared with you.
The sidebar itself can be collapsed and expanded and has different sections, which also can be collapsed and expanded for better overview and easier navigation. These sections include:
Expand and collapse of sections and doc items
One of the features of the docs sidebar is the ability to expand and collapse sections, spaces and doc items. This means that you can choose to view only the items that are relevant to you, making it easier to find what you need. The state of these items will be saved, for each location where you work with docs.
Reordering & nesting docs
Another useful feature of our product is the ability to drag and drop items in the sidebar. This allows you to reorder spaces and docs according to your preference. To do this, simply click and hold on the item you want to move, then drag it to the desired position.
A placeholder will show where the item will be positioned, making it easier for you to place it accurately.
But that's not all - our drag and drop feature also includes an indent mechanism. This means that you can move an item to the right while dragging, and it will be placed as a sub doc. This is useful for organizing your docs into levels and subdocs. When you indent on a doc, that didn’t have subdocs yet, you see the small arrow appearing on the left, indicating your moved doc will become a subdoc.
With these drag and drop features, you have complete control over the organization of your spaces and docs, making it easier for you to access the information you need.
Spaces
Here is your access to your spaces, which hold your docs. Clicking a space navigates into it and loads the first doc in view. To add a new space, hover over the spaces section title and click the add button. Here you can customize the appearance and set your permissions regarding workspace, users and teams. To edit an existing space, hover the space and click on the three dots button.
Favourites
You can mark your most important or loved docs as favourites and they will appear in this section to guarantee fast and easy access. There are two options to mark and unmark a doc as favourite. Via the action bar in the top of a doc, or via the (three dots) more button opening the context menu.
Shared with me
Docs that have been shared with you, your team or your whole workspace, will appear in this section.
Trash
On the bottom you can always find the trash, no matter where you are. On the main sidebar the trash is your personal trash for all your deleted private docs.
Recent Docs
The recent docs section displays a list of docs that have been recently edited by you. When switching between many docs this section will be your friend.
☝️Note: Please note that there is no custom ordering available in this section.
Doc page
The doc page is the main area to view and edit your content. It is where you can create, organize, and share your docs. In this article, we will go over the different features and functions of the doc page.
Top Bar
The top bar is located at the top of the doc page and contains important buttons and information.
Add doc button
The primary blue button to add docs is in the top-left position.
Breadcrumbs
We display breadcrumbs on the left side of the top bar, indicating the location and level of your doc. The first item shows whether the doc is in a space, a project or a private doc.
You can navigate by clicking on breadcrumbs items. That open the doc and refresh the sidebar accordingly.
Action bar
The action bar is place on the right side of the top bar and offers important actions regarding your opened doc. You can mark it as favourite, share it with others, manage your watcher settings and search content inside of a doc.
Clicking the three dots more button, will open the context-menu with more options like move a doc, duplicate, copy link or delete the doc.
Exporting a Doc as PDF
There are several ways to trigger the export as a PDF. It is always accessible via the three-dots-menu (…) on a Doc or via the export button inside of a doc on the top-right.
Click on Export as PDF
A print window is opened, which can look a little different based on your browser.
Make sure to check the option Include background in the print window.
Save the PDF to your device or print it directly.
That’s it! You now have a PDF version of your doc ready to share. 🚀
☝️ Notice
If your PDF is missing specific background colours behind text-colours or codeblock formats, please check the settings in the print window and make sure Include background images is checked. This setting may be named differently based on your browser.
PDF export is currently only available for individual docs. Subdocs are not included in the export.
Mentions are have no links included, but still provide useful context.
Comments are excluded from the export.
Title & content
This is the area where all the content of your doc live. Here you can write, document, brainstorm, collaborate together and write comments.
Our editor supports all functionality, that you know from task- and project-descriptions fields.
We also added more great features. 👉 See section below Editor features.
Title & emoji
The title and content section is where you can add and edit the title and content of your doc. You can add an emoji to the title of your doc by clicking the Add icon/emoji button.
Text colors
Select the text and choose a color using the A icon.
Syntax highlighting in code blocks
Add a code block using the floating action bar and paste your code. When you hover over the code block with your mouse, you can select your programming language. This will then be highlighted in color so that you can read the code more easily.
You can also copy the code with a single click.
Full screen view for embedded images
You can add images using the floating action bar. Select the image icon and a placeholder for your image will appear. Now add images using the button or drag and drop.
Once the image has been uploaded, you can adjust its size using the slider.
Table of contents
When structuring content with different header formats, they will appear as small indicators at the right of the screen inside a doc. The blue indicator shows the heading which is on top of the currently visible content.
When moving the mouse to the right of the screen a popup appears, showing all used headers in your doc. Clicking a header from the popup navigates to that section of the doc.
☝️Hint: Table of contents is always visible and cannot be turned off.
Create a doc
There are different options to create a new doc, based on where you are in awork and what kind of doc you want to create.
Primary button
You can create a new doc via the primary blue + Doc button in the top left of the page. This button is visible on the the docs main page, when inside of a space or in the project doc tab page.
Clicking that button will always create a doc in the same level as the currently displayed one. If you want to directly create subdocs, you need to use the small + button on a doc item in the sidebar.
Create subdocs
In addition to the primary button, there are also smaller add-buttons within the doc-items, that appear on hover. These buttons allow you to create a subdoc for a specific doc.
The correct location of the doc is immediately shown in the breadcrumbs.
☝️ Hint: You can also manually reorder and nest docs in the sidebar via drag and drop.
Create a private doc
Go to docs main page, and click the + Doc button, to create a private doc.
Move a Doc
If you need to move your doc to a different space, project, or make it private, you can do so by using the move feature. This can be accessed via the context-menu on the doc and allows you to easily move your around in your workspace.
In the move popup you can select a location from the tab bar. (Space, Project, Private,). Clicking Move here now will move the doc in the top-level hierachy of the selected location. If you want to move it, to become a subdoc of another doc, you can select the doc inside of the popup. When move action is triggered now, it becomes a subdoc.
Share a doc
You can easily share your doc with others by using the share button in the action bar or via the context menu. This allows you to set workspace access, assign teams and users to your doc. While sharing, you can can define individual permission settings for each user or team. All docs can be individually shared.
Delete a doc
Each doc type has their own trash section, which is always the last section of the doc sidebar. For space docs the trash can be accessed from inside of the space, for project docs it is found in the project doc sidebar. And the trash for your private docs, can be accessed in the sidebar from the main docs page.
Once a doc is moved to trash, all its subdocs are also moved there as well. Docs in trash cannot be edited and will be permanently deleted after one year.
Docs and subdoc can be individually restored back to its original place via the context-menu and clicking Restore.
☝️Important: When perma-delete a doc via the context-menu from the trash, it will be gone forever with all its subdocs and cannot be restored anymore.
Doc features
Live edit collaboration
Collaborating on docs via live edit makes working on docs together super easy. Other users are visible via the live user indicators, while they are typing or selecting text.
Link task to a doc
Project docs have have a special feature, to link a task to a doc. Click on the placeholder text Select task below the title of a project doc, and select a task of the project or create a new one.
The task will be added and linked to the doc until manually unlinked again, which can be done on the (x) of the task or via the doc context-menu.
The current task status of the linked task will be shown on the docs item in the sidebar.
☝️Note: Only one task can be linked to a project doc at the same time.
Create tasks via AI
A handy feature is the ability to create tasks based on the content of a text selection inside of a doc. Mark some text, click the Create tasks button in the toolbar and select the project and tasklist for the tasks to be placed.
Comments on docs
To create a comment on a doc, mark some text and click on the comment button in the toolbar. This will start a new comment thread for this text selection. You can mention users, reply on comments, react on comments and of course edit and delete your comments as well.
A comment thread will stays unless it is marked as resolved. When deleting the first comment of a thread, the whole thread will be removed.
Mentioned users will be notified and at the top right of a comment popup, you can click to copy the link of a thread for easier sharing.
Search for docs
Docs can be searched and found via the global search. There is a dedicated Docs tab in the search, to filter the results only for docs.
☝️ Note: Docs in trash can still be found via the global search.
Versioning
With versioning in awork Docs, you can easily track changes and manage your documents over time. Whether you're working on a private doc, space doc or project doc every edit is automatically saved as a new version — giving you peace of mind and full control over your document history.
You are able to:
View past versions of a doc
See when and by whom changes were made
Restore an older version if needed
This ensures that your work is always backed up, and collaboration is seamless — no matter how many changes happen along the way.
Versioning is available for all kind of docs and each doc has its own version history. Subdocs have separate versions histories and are not included in the parent doc’s versioning.
How does versioning work?
New versions are automatically created every 5–10 minutes during continuous editing or after a session ended.
Each version is labeled with the date and time it was saved, along with the avatar of the last person who made changes (if available).
The version history modal can always be accessed via the three-dots context menu button when a doc item is hovered or on the top right inside of a doc on the same button.
Once you select Version history from the context menu a modal will appear, which shows a list of the versions available for the doc and a preview of the content of the selected version. (The latest version will always appear on top of the list.)
Restoring a previous version
To restore an older version select a version from the list and click the Restore button on the bottom right. Confirm the action in the next step and you will see the restored version of the doc.
Restoring a version does not delete your current document. Instead, awork saves the current version as a new entry in your version history before rolling back — so nothing is ever lost.
Depending on your subscription plan, older versions may become locked after a certain time. Locked versions are visible in the version list but cannot be opened or restored.
Who can restore?
Starting from the Professional plan all users with edit access to a document can view and restore versions. Admins always have access to the version history.
Current sharing or permission settings always remain — restoring a version does not change who can access the doc.
Permission Management
General and project-specific permission roles
In the general and project-specific permission roles, you can define whether users in this role should have no access, read-only access, or edit access to Docs.
You can learn more about our permission management in this article.