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Orbit Docs

Orbit Docs is Quazzar’s built-in document editor. It loads from the dock as part of the Orbit suite alongside Sheets, Slides, and Notes. 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 category in the app dock and click Docs. New documents land in your personal workspace; existing ones appear in the left sidebar grouped by folder.

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 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