Formatting text

Where you can format text

The larger freeform fields in mizuiro - meeting minutes, task detail and check-ins, touchpoint notes, incident and performance write-ups, contact notes, kudos, and the rest - accept a small amount of markdown. Markdown is a plain, type-it-yourself way to add formatting: you write a couple of symbols around your text and mizuiro turns them into bold, a list, a link, and so on when the record is saved.

There’s no toolbar and no rich-text editor. You type the markers, and a small Formatting link sits under the field (next to the character counter). Click it for a compact cheat-sheet: the marker you type on the left, a live preview of what it turns into on the right. It only lists the options that field actually supports, so it’s also how you tell, at a glance, whether a given field turns @names and #topics into links.

Note

Short single-line fields - a title, a name, a date - don’t format. Formatting is for the roomy “write as much as you like” boxes, which are exactly the ones with the Formatting link.

The markers

Emphasis

Wrap a word or phrase in a marker on each side.

You type	You get
`important`	important
`a little emphasis`	a little emphasis
`__underlined__`	underlined
`~~scratch that~~`	~~scratch that~~
`SER-12345`	`SER-12345`

You can combine them - **bold with *italic* inside** renders as bold with italic inside.

Backticks are handy for anything you don’t want touched: part numbers, serials, IP addresses, reference numbers. Whatever’s inside them shows in a monospace chip exactly as you typed it, so a stray * won’t turn into italics.

Lists

Start each line with - for a bulleted list, or 1. for a numbered one.

Type this:

Follow-ups from the call:
- send the revised quote
- book the site visit
- loop in the vendor

…and it renders as:

Follow-ups from the call:

send the revised quote
book the site visit
loop in the vendor

Numbered lists work the same way with 1., 2., 3. at the start of each line.

Line breaks

Just press Enter. A single new line stays a new line; a blank line starts a new paragraph. You don’t need any special marker for this.

Quotes

Start a line with > to set it off as a quote block, indented with a coloured bar down the side. Handy for capturing what someone actually said, word for word.

Passing on the feedback from the site visit:
> The crew was fantastic, in and out in a day.

Consecutive > lines fold into one quote.

Dividers

Put three or more dashes, stars, or underscores on their own line to draw a horizontal divider - handy for separating sections in a longer note.

Recap of where things stand.

---

Next steps for the team.

Any of ---, ***, or ___ works, as long as it’s alone on the line.

Headings

Start a line with one, two or three # followed by a space for a heading. Mostly useful in policies, where sections matter, but it works in any freeform field.

## What we expect

- Keep every receipt over $25

The space is what makes it a heading: #safety with no space is still a #topic.

Links

Write [the text](https://example.com) and the text becomes a link that opens in a new tab. Only http and https addresses work; anything else is left as plain text.

Links that happen automatically

Some things become links without any markdown at all - you just type them normally:

@name links to a person in your directory. See @mentions.
#topic links to a subject page. See #topics.
An email address like [email protected] becomes a tap-to-email link. (Because of this, an email is always treated as an address, never as an @mention of its domain.)

Note

Every freeform field links @names, but only a few fields (tasks and meeting minutes) actually record a #topic on the Topics page. On the fields that do, the Formatting popover lists a #topic row; where it doesn’t, a #tag you type still reads as one but won’t feed the Topics trends. When in doubt, the Formatting popover under the field is the source of truth.

The Formatting cheat-sheet

Click Formatting under any freeform field to open a small popover: two columns, the marker you type on the left and a live preview of the result on the right, for every option that field supports. @name and #topic rows appear only on the fields where they apply. It stays out of the way until you need it, then it’s right there.

Screenshot pending

A freeform notes field with a small Formatting link beneath it, and the opened cheat-sheet popover showing rows of markers on the left with their rendered result on the right: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, code, list, numbered, quote, and divider

Click Formatting for the cheat-sheet: type the left, get the right.

What doesn’t work (and why)

The formatting is small and safe on purpose:

No raw HTML. If you paste <b> tags or a <script>, they show up as the literal text you pasted, not as formatting. This keeps notes safe no matter what gets pasted in.
No images. A link has to be written as [text](https://...); a bare pasted web address stays plain text, and only http/https addresses ever become links.

Which is the idea: enough formatting to make a long note readable, nothing that could turn someone else’s notes into a surprise.