Workspaces¶

Zettlr is designed around the concept of “workspaces.” Workspaces are simply folders somewhere on your computer designated to house all your documents and notes.

Why Workspaces?¶

We aim to make Zettlr as frictionless as possible. To offer you many of its perks and features, such as automatic linking between files, Zettlr needs to know where your documents live on your computer. By loading those folders into Zettlr as “workspaces” you point the app to these folders. The app will then index the documents in these workspaces and collect all tags, links, and other metadata from these documents. Finally, Zettlr uses this information to, e.g., offer you tag and file link autocompletion.

When you first opened Zettlr, there was already one workspace open: The Zettlr Tutorial. The tutorial is simply a folder full of documents that the app has automatically created in your “Documents” folder, and then added to the list of open workspaces.

We believe that the concept of folders is perfectly suited for anyone’s needs when writing. First, using folders is much more organized than a bunch of notes in your Downloads folder or on your Desktop. But second, and more crucially, by explicitly not storing your data in a database, we avoid what is known as “vendor lock-in,” where you are suddenly dependent on some vendor because all your data is in an otherwise unreadable database.

However, folders on your computer often contain many more things, and not all of them are relevant for your writing process. That’s why we use workspaces: A few, explicitly selected folders in which you will only store Markdown documents and related files. This keeps your documents in one single location so you never lose anything, and it keeps any unrelated documents elsewhere so the file browser of Zettlr will only show you relevant files.

And all, without vendor lock-in: If you want to move your files around, you just move your files around.

Adding Workspaces¶

To create workspaces for your own work, you should start by thinking which workspaces you need. For this, there are some organizing principles that you can follow. See the section “Conceptualizing your workspaces” below for some suggestions. First, we want to show you how to add those workspaces that you have to Zettlr.

Adding workspaces in Zettlr requires two steps. First, you need to create a folder for your workspace somewhere on your computer. Many of you probably already have such a folder. Second, you need to load that folder as a workspace in Zettlr.

To add a folder as a workspace to Zettlr, select “File” → “Open Workspace…” or click the folder-icon in the toolbar. This will open a dialog that lets you select a folder. Navigate to your desired folder and confirm your choice.

Conceptualizing Your Workspaces¶

Having dedicated folders for your work is great, but only if those workspaces match your workflow. As an academic, you will likely need different workspaces than a journalist.

There are two general ways of thinking about your workspaces: first by broad organizing principles, and second by your profession. First, let us think about organizing principles.

One such principle is called PARA by Tiago Forte, which stands for “Projects,” “Areas,” “Resources,” and “Archive.” The principle is organized around these four folders, in which you are supposed to place your documents.

The idea is that any project which has a defined start and end date goes into the “Projects” folder. Responsibilities without any defined time span, like your hobbies, go into “Areas.” “Resources” contains useful information and things you have found which may be of interest. And “Archive” is a form of “trash bin” for anything from one of these three folders, which allows you to archive things without actually throwing them away.

However, there is no right solution to thinking about how you personally work, so we recommend that you play around with some ideas, and not fully commit to any organizing principle if you are not certain what works for you. We invite you to search the internet for inspiration, and look at various organizing principles beyond PARA.

Below you can find a few subjective suggestions from us that you can use for some initial inspiration, based on what you need Zettlr for.

For Students¶

If you are a student in an undergrad or graduate program (Bachelor and Master level in the Bologna system), you could consider something like this:

• Courses: One workspace for all the courses you need to take. Create one folder per course, ideally namespaced by date (e.g., 2026-01 Political Science 101, 2026-02 Political Science 201, and so forth, where the “1” denotes the spring/summer semester, and the “2” denotes the autumn/winter semester).
• Reading Notes: One workspace for all your reading notes. Whenever you read a paper, book, or other resource, you should take notes, and by having one “Reading Notes” folder, you ensure that all your notes with actual sources are contained within this one folder.
• Lecture Notes: As a student, you will frequently visit lectures outside your core curriculum. This could be a place to collect all notes from this. This also includes workshops, etc.
• Campus: If you are active in the student life of your university or college (which we recommend ;), you could create a campus workspace with subfolders for every activity (e.g., for student radio, a sports club, reading circles, and so on).

For PhD-Students¶

As a PhD-Student, your requirements will be somewhat different from undergrad or graduate students. You might consider additional folders like this:

• Teaching: Unlike undergrad or graduate students, PhD-Students are often expected to teach on their own. You could create a workspace for all the courses you need to teach, and collect teaching material here.
• Admin: If you are an active participant in your institute or department, you may want to consider creating a workspace for all the admin work that amounts over time.
• Conferences: As a PhD-Student, you are usually expected to visit conferences. You could create one folder per conference (possibly also namespaced by date), and collect both your submission abstract and notes here.
• Papers: To finish a dissertation, you will need to write papers. So it is natural to collect them in their own workspace – one folder per paper.

For Faculty¶

Once you’ve left the realm of students, while many of the folders will remain similar to all kinds of students, you may have the need for some additional folders:

• Grants: Applying for grants is eerily similar to writing papers. To maintain an overview over all the material, sorting them into their own workspace can help.
• Projects: As soon as you move from employee in a project to PI, you need to keep track of administrative overhead and the overall mission of your project. One workspace for this might be a great idea.

For Authors or Journalists¶

If you are not in academia, your requirements for workspaces will be different. Some suggestions:

• Notes: Just a general workspace for any notes you may have – not necessarily coming from lectures, but maybe your own thoughts, or ideas for stories.
• Sources: Even though, as a journalist, you work less with academic lecture, it is nonetheless important to keep track of where you got your information from. A workspace for your sources with a place for any material or contact details may be great.
• Personas: Authors need to think of convincing background stories for their protagonists and antagonists to keep their prose captivating. You might consider collecting these background stories in their dedicated folder.

For Anybody Else¶

Anyone else still can think of meaningful categorizations for their work. The most crucial part is to recognize that, while some categorization is inevitable, you should not think about these categories too strictly, lest you fall prey to the problem of having to move something into a box that it does not fit into. Choose broad categories, rather than too narrow ones.