Welcome!¶
Thank you for choosing Zettlr as your new One-Stop Publication Workbench! Zettlr is a powerful writing tool for all your needs. It is designed for anyone with a serious need to write, and goes out of your way to allow you to write frictionless.
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If you are a new user, head over to our first time users guide to get started with the app.
For academics at every level, from student to faculty, Zettlr offers comprehensive support for citations and project support, and it includes a powerful templating engine that enables you to quickly typeset camera-ready paper drafts.
For authors, Zettlr ships with extensive support for taking notes, creating wikis, and reference files as you write.
And for anyone else, it allows the easy setup of an all-inclusive Zettelkasten or PKMS workflow.
Note
This documentation is available in several languages. Select another language from the main page. Please note that these translations are community-provided and may be incomplete. If in doubt, always consult this (the English) version of the documentation.
Contents¶
This documentation is divided into various sections that describe different aspects of the app. Click on a section to view it.
- 🏁 Getting Started
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Set up Zettlr, how to make Zettlr secure, and find troubleshooting help.
- 🧑💻 First Time Users
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Read this after installing the app for the first time. Use the “Next”- and “Previous”-buttons to navigate through this section, because it is meant to be read start to finish.
- 🗄️ File Manager
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Describes the file manager, and how it displays your files. This section also includes descriptions of central concepts of the app, such as workspaces.
- 🪟 Split View
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Introduces the split view, and how you can use it efficiently.
- 📋 Sidebar
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Describes the sidebar, and how you can use it.
- 📝 Markdown Editor
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Describes the central Markdown document editor and all its functionality.
- 🪮 Language and Style
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Learn how Zettlr can help you write good prose with spell checkers, grammar checkers, and style checkers.
- 🤖 Exporting
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In-depth explainer of how the exporting system works and how you can use it to your advantage.
- 🧪 Scientific and Technical
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Describes features of the app primarily relevant to scientists or technical writers.
- 🗃️ PKMS/Zettelkasten
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Set up Zettlr as a personal knowledge management system.
- 💡 Guides
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Contains step-by-step guides to realizing some more complex features; from customizations to full journal or conference templates.
- ⚙️ Reference
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Includes descriptions on available keyboard shortcuts and settings.
Note
You can always access this documentation from the app. To do so, press F1 or choose “Help” → “Open user manual” from the menu (internet connection required).
FAQ¶
This documentation includes a comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions section. If neither the documentation nor the FAQ can answer your question, we invite you to join our community on Discord, the Community Forum, or Reddit.
The company Gurubase offers an LLM-integration with this documentation to peruse, allowing you to “chat” with the documentation.
Get Involved!¶
Zettlr is free and open source software, which means that its source code is publicly available, and the application comes at no cost. However, this also means that there is no paid staff behind the app – it is completely managed by the community. This means that we actively encourage users to get involved with the app. Depending on your skills and what you like most, there are various ways in which you can help Zettlr out:
- You can translate the app (GitHub account required).
- You can translate and improve this documentation (GitHub account required).
- You can join the community on Reddit, Discord, and GitHub Discussions and help new and other users.
- You can tackle open issues on GitHub and help develop the application itself (GitHub account required).
More information on how to get involved can be found here in the documentation.