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Orbit Docs

Orbit Docs is Quazzar’s built-in document editor. It is part of the Orbit suite alongside Sheets, Slides, and Notes, all reachable from the Orbit space (Personal mode, space 2). Documents are stored as Markdown on disk, rendered on a canvas, and round-trip cleanly with Microsoft Word, PDF, and JSON.

Most capabilities are free on the Community plan. Real-time collaboration, binary export, unlimited share links, and extended version history require Orbit Pro — see Orbit Pro for the full tier matrix.

Where to find it

Open the Orbit space (Personal mode, press 2) and click Doc to create a document in one click, or pick one from Recent. The full document list is under Docs (Ctrl/⌘+K → Docs). New documents land in your personal workspace; existing ones appear in the left sidebar grouped by folder. The editor opens edge to edge, without the page header.

Writing and editing

The canvas editor renders Markdown with live styling while you type. No toolbar modes, no context-switch — **bold**, # headings, - lists, and every other standard Markdown construct display correctly in place.

Markdown round-trip

Anything you type is Markdown on disk. You can:

  • Copy the raw source into another tool by clicking … -> View source.
  • Drop a .md file into the editor to create a new document.
  • Paste rich text and it is converted to Markdown on commit.

The editor never silently rewrites your source. Trailing whitespace, heading style (# vs underline), and list markers are preserved.

Find and replace

Press Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F on macOS) to open the floating find bar. Press Ctrl+H to switch into replace mode. The bar supports:

  • Case-sensitive toggle
  • Whole-word toggle
  • Replace-one and Replace-all
  • Up/down navigation through matches

The parser runs lazily — the bar only touches the document when you open it, so opening a 200-page doc no longer has any typing-latency cost.

If typing feels slow, make sure you are on 0.6.35 or later. Earlier builds re-parsed the full Markdown AST on every keystroke while the find bar was idle in memory; the regression is fixed.

Collaboration (Orbit Pro)

Real-time CRDT collaboration is gated behind Orbit Pro. To enable it on a document, append ?collab=1 to the document URL. Peers see:

  • Live cursor positions with user colours
  • Character-level edits without conflicts (Yjs backend)
  • Presence indicators in the top-right

The WebSocket upgrade is rejected with HTTP 402 Payment Required on the Community plan — the document still opens read/write for the single user, just without remote peers. Upgrade prompts appear inline.

Any document can be published as a read-only public URL.

  1. Click Share in the document header.
  2. Click Create link. A tokenised URL is generated.
  3. Click Copy to put it on the clipboard.

The Community plan caps you at 3 active share links across all documents. Revoke one to free a slot. Orbit Pro removes the cap.

Import and export

Supported formats

DirectionFormatsPlan
ImportMarkdown, DOCX, PDF, JSONCommunity
ExportMarkdown, JSONCommunity
ExportDOCX, PDFOrbit Pro

Importing

Drop a file onto the Docs pane, or use File -> Import. DOCX and PDF pass through a server-side extractor that produces Markdown. Complex layouts (multi-column, text boxes, embedded equations) may degrade — the extractor optimises for text fidelity, not visual reproduction.

Exporting binary formats

File -> Export -> DOCX or PDF is gated behind Orbit Pro. The server returns 402 Payment Required on the Community plan; the upgrade dialog opens automatically.

Markdown and JSON export are free on every plan.

Docs to Slides

Click File -> Export to Slides to convert the current document into an Orbit Slides deck:

  • Every # heading becomes a new slide title.
  • Content between headings becomes the slide body.
  • Bullet lists stay bulleted.
  • Code blocks retain monospace styling in the new deck.

The generated deck opens in Slides — you can then pick a theme or rearrange layouts. See Orbit Slides.

Mobile layout

Phone-sized viewports collapse the sidebar into a drawer and reduce the toolbar to the essential actions. The canvas uses the full viewport width and pinches for zoom gracefully. Every gesture (tap to place caret, long-press to select) works on both iOS Safari and Chrome Android.

Keyboard shortcuts

ShortcutAction
Ctrl+F / Cmd+FOpen find bar
Ctrl+H / Cmd+HOpen replace bar
Ctrl+S / Cmd+SForce save (autosave runs on every change)
Ctrl+B / Cmd+BToggle bold
Ctrl+I / Cmd+IToggle italic
Ctrl+K / Cmd+KOpen the command palette (works across Cloud OS)

Troubleshooting

The editor stutters while typing

Update to 0.6.35 or later. The pre-0.6.35 find-bar kept a full Markdown AST in React state and re-parsed on every keystroke.

A share link opens a blank page

Share-link targets are resolved server-side at request time. If the underlying document was deleted, the token is invalidated and the viewer sees a 404. Revoke the stale link from Share -> Manage.

DOCX export returns HTTP 402

You are on the Community plan. Open the returned upgrade dialog or go to Settings -> Billing -> Subscription to move to Orbit Pro.

Molly MemoryOrbit Sheets