Bullets

Learn the basics of using and manipulating bullets, Workflowy's basic building blocks.

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When to use

Bullets are the core building blocks of Workflowy - everything you write lives inside a bullet.

They’re infinitely nestable, so you can go as deep or as broad as you like: from big-picture plans to tiny details, all in one connected space.

Think of bullets as flexible containers for tasks, notes, ideas, and projects - simple enough for a to-do list, powerful enough for your second brain.

About bullets

Bullets can be nestedorindented under each other. Nesting bullets groups them together, with the top bullet serving as the parent item and everything nested under it as the descendants. You can nest or indentbullets an infinite number of levels, this allows bullets to be used in several ways. In Workflowy bullets can serve as single lines of text, folders, or documents.

Create a bullet

There are a couple of different ways to create bullets in Workflowy. By pressing the plus icon, pressing the “New node” button in the sidebar, or by pressing ENTER on your keyboard.

  1. Put your cursor at the end of a line of text
  2. Hit ENTER on your keyboard

Zoom in

You can zoom in to any item by clicking the bullet. The item you click will become the top most item and any nested content will be displayed.

  1. Click on the bullet icon of the bullet you want to zoom in to
  2. The text of the bullet becomes the title of the view and any nested items become the content of the view.

Zoom out

You can zoom out to any intermediate level available in the breadcrumbs by clicking it. You can also click the house icon to zoom out to the root level.

  1. Click on the breadcrumb in the menu bar with the location you want to zoom out to

Move a bullet

You can move bullets anywhere you want. You can nest and un-nest items by moving bullets under other bullets.

If you move an item that has nested items, all the nested items will also move with the main bullet you're moving.

  1. Click-and-drag a bullet
  2. Drop the bullet in its new location
  3. You can also move bullets using the slash command “Move to”.

Delete a bullet

  1. Mouse over a bullet
  2. Open the bullet menu
  3. Click on the “Delete” optionYou can also delete multiple items by highlighting them with your mouse and clicking “Delete” on the text format widget.

Expand all bullets

You can expand all collapsed bullets within your current view to view the nested content.

  1. Zoom into the section that contains what you want to expand
  2. Open the options menu in the menu bar
  3. Click on “Expand all” in the menu
  4. You can also double click quickly on the triangle to the left of a bullet that has nested items to expand all bullets.

Collapse all bullets

  1. Zoom into the section that contains what you want to collapse
  2. Open the options menu in the menu bar
  3. Click on “Collapse all” in the menuYou can also double click quickly on the triangle to the left of a bullet that has nested items to collapse all bullets.

Restore a bullet

If you ever want to restore deleted items, you can do so from the trash can.

  1. Open the options panel from the menu bar
  2. Click on the “Trash” option
  3. Find the item or items you want to restore
  4. Click on the restore icon

Duplicate a bullet

  1. Mouse over a bullet item
  2. Click on the bullet menu
  3. Choose “Duplicate” from the menu
  4. When you duplicate an item, the duplicate will be tagged with #copyso you can distinguish the original from the copy.
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