Introduction

Welcome to OmniOutliner 4.3!

OmniOutliner is the one tool you need for making and managing lists of things. Whether you’re keeping track of things you need to do for a project or putting together an outline for a book or research paper you’re working on, OmniOutliner has everything you need to organize and keep those fine details straight.

Optimized for OS X Yosemite, OmniOutliner’s user interface has undergone a transformation that we’re sure you’ll love. Gone are the old style buttons and controls; these have all been refreshed to give OmniOutliner a nice, clean appearance.

Read on to learn more about what’s new in OmniOutliner and in this documentation.

How This Documentation is Organized

This wonderful manual that you have before you (either in OmniOutliner itself, online, or in iBooks on your Mac or iOS device—or both) has been assembled in such a way that you’re provided with a complete tour of OmniOutliner.

You’ll start out with an overview of OmniOutliner’s interface. Don’t skip over this chapter, as you’ll find many nuggets of information and fine details about OmniOutliner that you might otherwise miss. And, if you do decide to skip this chapter and later find yourself wondering, “Hey, what’s that doohickey do?”, you can always come back here to discover what it’s all about.

To help guide you through the documentation and better learn all the things you need to know about OmniOutliner, here’s a list of all of the chapters in this book:

Chapter 1, Getting to Know OmniOutliner

The first chapter dives right in and gives you a top-down overview of OmniOutliner’s user interface. Nothing too deep; just the basics to get you rolling.

Chapter 2, Getting Synced with OmniPresence and Omni Sync Server

When it comes to protecting those documents and sharing them between OmniOutliner on your Mac and OmniOutliner on your iPad, we have something a little extra-special for you: OmniPresence and Omni Sync Server. This chapter shows you how to download, install, and configure OmniPresence on your Mac so you can share files between OmniOutliner on your Mac and iPad.

Chapter 3, Using the Resource Browser

The Resource Browser makes it easy for you to open a recently-saved file, or to create awesome looking documents by starting out with one of the available templates.

Chapter 4, Using the Toolbar

Located at the top of OmniOutliner’s window, you’ll find the Toolbar. The Toolbar gives you easy access to commonly-used OmniOutliner functions, such as buttons for hiding and showing the Sidebar and Inspectors, or for folding and expanding lists in your outline. And just like other Mac apps, you can customize the buttons in the Toolbar, but unlike other Mac apps, you can create document-specific toolbars if you have OmniOutliner Pro.

Chapter 5, Using the Sidebar

The Sidebar, located along the left edge of OmniOutliner’s window, helps you focus on and style the Contents of your outline.

Chapter 6, Using the Inspectors

Once you’ve learned about the Tools, you can use the Inspectors to examine the contents of your outlines and modify their style properties.

Chapter 7, Working with OmniOutliner

Now that you’re familiar with OmniOutliner’s interface and all of the text-styling tools, it’s time to put all of that new-found logic to the test with a short tutorial. This chapter takes one of the sparsest templates available—the Blank template—and walks you through the process of creating a colorful, well-styled document template.

Chapter 8, Printing from OmniOutliner

Every now and then you may need to print the outline that you’ve been creating in OmniOutliner. This chapter shows you the key features of OmniOutliner’s print dialog.

Chapter 9, Preferences

There are six preference panes that you can use to further customize OmniOutliner to suit your needs, and your work style.

Chapter 10, Sharing OmniOutliner Files with Other Apps

OmniOutliner is the bees knees when it comes to working with text. And for all of your text-hungry needs, we’ve made it easy for you to import text files and export your outlines in a variety of formats.

Chapter 11, Menu Items and Keyboard Shortcuts

Here you’ll find a detailed walkthrough of each menu item in OmniOutliner 4.3, including the Pro-only options. Where applicable, the descriptions include the menu option’s keyboard shortcut so you can work even faster in OmniOutliner.

Chapter 12, Managing Your Omni Licences

For the most part, you should never have to worry about your Omni license, particularly if you’ve purchased OmniOutliner from the Mac App Store. If you purchased OmniOutliner from our website, however, you need to enter specific information from the license email you received from us.

This brief chapter walks you through the process of adding your license info in OmniOutliner, shows you how to remove a license, and even tells you where we “hide” the license on your Mac just in case you ever need to send that to us or transfer it to that brand new Mac you’ve purchased.

Chapter 13, Getting Help

There’s no shame in admitting that you need help. In fact, that’s what we’re here for. If you ever get stuck when working on something in OmniOutliner, or if you have a problem with the app’s license, or you just want to tell our Support Humans and the DocWranglers what an awesome job they’re doing, feel free to get in touch. This chapter points you to all of the resources we have available: Support Humans, Support Articles, Videos, and Documentation.

Using This Book

One of the beauties of having OmniOutliner’s documentation available in electronic form is that it’s always available whenever you need it. We have built the documentation right into the Help menu. We have put all of the documentation on our website where it can be searched and bookmarked. And we’re continuing the ongoing trend of creating EPUB versions of the docs and making them freely available on the iBooks Store.

What’s New in OmniOutliner 4.3

Supporting the latest technologies in and optimized for OS X Yosemite, OmniOutliner 4.3 packs in more of the features long-time Outliner fans have been asking for, including:

• NEW! CSV Export—You can now export your outline as comma-separated values file (.csv). Use OmniOutliner 4.3 to Export your outline so you can import its data in other apps, such as Numbers or Microsoft Excel.
• NEW! PowerPoint Export—Need to turn your outline into a presentation? You can Export your outline from OmniOutliner 4.3 to the Microsoft PowerPoint format (.pptx) so you can either create your presentation in PowerPoint, or import the .pptx file to Apple’s Keynote.

• Resource Browser—Use the new Resource Browser to browse recently edited files, choose templates, apply themes to existing documents, and import your templates from OmniOutliner 3.

• Sidebar—We’ve done away with the old style drawer from OmniOutliner 3 and have created a new Sidebar that lists the Contents of your outline, Styles, and more!

• Inspector redesign—OmniOutliner’s redesigned Inspector window is cleaner and fresher.

• Styles—To be more in line with OmniOutliner 2 for iPad, we’ve retooled the way styles work to create a great cross-platform experience. We’ve added style theming, too, so you can apply template styles to an existing document.

• Theming—You can now apply the styles from a template (its theme) to your outlines.

• Column visibility—Have a document with a lot of columns that you only need to access every now and then? We’ve added the ability to hide columns when you don’t need them, and then make them reappear when you want them back.

• Smart Match Technology—Pop-up List-styled columns benefit from the Smart Match technology we’ve used in OmniFocus. As you type characters in a Pop-up List cell, OmniOutliner tries to guess which item you mean—and the characters you enter don’t have to be at the beginning or contiguous. If you type a new value that you’d like to add to the Pop-up List, just enter Command-Return to add the value to that list.

• Hyperlinks—URLs are converted into real links so you can click and open them in your default browser. What’s more, if you don’t want or like this behavior, you can toggle this off in OmniOutliner’s preferences.

• Attachments—You can attach pretty much anything to an OmniOutliner document: images, video, audio, even other OmniOutliner files. Attached images autoscale to the column width, and you can attach audio clips which play right within the Outline. What’s more, we’ve added a new attachment popover to replace OmniOutliner 3’s tagging, so you can change the visibility of attached images, use alternative text rather than a filename, and direct how OmniOutliner 4 opens attachments.

• Date parsing logic—OmniOutliner’s new date parsing logic lets you type stuff like now, yesterday, 2d, september, thu, or –5w in a date column and have it know what you mean.

• Printing—All OmniOutliner-specific print options are now located in the print panel. You can customize page headers and footers, adjust scaling and margins, choose whether to include Notes, and more.

• Zooming—Text can now be magnified on screen without changing your print layout.

• Compatibility with existing files—OmniOutliner 4 is fully compatible with OmniOutliner 3 for Mac, and OmniOutliner 1 and 2 for iPad. As long as you have a .oo3 file, OmniOutliner 4 can open it.

All this in a snappier, faster UI, OmniOutliner 4.3 is built for OS X Yosemite and the latest Mac hardware.

Tell Us What You Think

We’re constantly working on updates for our documentation. Whether it’s CSS work, correcting the occasional typo (yeah, they do sometimes slip through), or adding details or clarification for a specific feature based on something we’ve heard from a customer, we’re always trying to make our documentation better and more useful for you.

If you have any specific comments you’d like to send us about the documentation, please do. You can drop us an email message via our Support queue, or you can ping us on Twitter; we’re @OmniWranglers.

Finally, we’d like to thank you for taking the time to read the docs.

Getting to Know OmniOutliner

When you first open OmniOutliner, you’ll see two windows pop open: the editing window and the Inspector. The editing window is where you’ll do all of your work, and the Inspector provides all of the tools you need to style text, format rows and columns. Before diving in, let’s take some time for a quick overview of OmniOutliner’s user interface:

1. The Toolbar—Along the top of OmniOutliner’s window you’ll find a row of useful buttons in the Toolbar. Fully customizable—including document-specific toolbars—the toolbar makes it easy for you to add columns and attachments, record and embed audio clips, and a whole lot more. See Using the Toolbar for more details.

2. The Sidebar—Along the left side of OmniOutliner’s window is the Sidebar. Fully collapsible, the Sidebar provides an outline view of everything in the Editor and keeps track of the styles you’ve used in your document. To learn more about the Sidebar, see Using the Sidebar.

3. The Outline—This is where you enter text in rows and columns, add notes, tick things off using the status checkboxes, attach images, embed audio clips, and a whole lot more. To learn more about how to use OmniOutliner, including details for creating styles and templates, take some time to work through the hands-on tutorial, Working in OmniOutliner.

4. The Inspector—Floating off in its own window are the Inspectors. Consisting of the Style, Column, Outline, Document, and Style Attributes inspectors, the floating window makes it easy for you to design your OmniOutliner documents with style, and when you don’t need it, you can just hit Shift-Command-I to make it go away until you need the Inspectors again. For more details about the Inspectors and what each of them do, see Using the Inspectors.

Using and Setting Keyboard Shortcuts

From time to time, we’ll mention keyboard shortcuts that you can use in OmniOutliner. If you’re new to the Mac or aren’t accustomed to using keyboard shortcuts, they can really help speed you along while working in OmniOutliner. Rather than having to grab a mouse or take your fingers off the keys while you’re typing to use your Mac’s Trackpad, you can just hit a keyboard shortcut to invoke certain menu commands.

Not every menu option has its very own keyboard shortcut, though. If you find that you’re using a menu option often enough that it warrants its own special keyboard shortcut—or if you want to change an existing keyboard shortcut to something else—you can do this with the System Preferences app on your Mac. To show you how easy this is to do, let’s create your first custom keyboard shortcut for OmniOutliner—for the Zoom to Actual Size menu option.

1. Before you get started, the first thing you need to know is where the Zoom to Actual Size menu item resides amongst OmniOutliner’s menu options. After some poking around, you find it in the View menu:

   

   It’s not that you need to know which menu the option is in (although, that is helpful in other ways), what you really need to know is exactly how that menu option is spelled out. When you go to create this keyboard shortcut, you’ll need to know that. Of course, you can always switch back and forth between OmniOutliner and the Keyboard system preferences pane if you need to, but it’s good to have this piece of information before you get too far along.

2. In the Dock, click System Preferences.

3. Open the Keyboard preferences panel, and then click on the Shortcuts tab.

4. In the sidebar on the left, click App Shortcuts; the area to the right lists any custom keyboard shortcuts you’ve created for other apps on your Mac.

   

5. Beneath the listing of custom shortcuts, click the Add button; it’s the one that looks like a plus sign (+). This opens a sheet in which you can create the custom keyboard shortcut.

6. In the sheet, do the following:

   • In the Application menu, choose OmniOutliner.app
   • In the Menu Title field, enter Zoom to Actual Size. Be sure to enter the text exactly as it appears in the menu, otherwise this won’t work.
   • In the Keyboard Shortcut field, enter the keyboard shortcut you would like to use. Since many popular design apps use ⌘–1 for zoom to actual size, that’s what we’ve used here for this example; you can use whatever you would like, though.

   When finished, the sheet should look similar to the following:

   

7. Click Add to create the new keyboard shortcut for OmniOutliner.

If you switch back to OmniOutliner and look in the View menu, you’ll see your newly-created keyboard shortcut for Zoom to Actual Size.

To learn more about using keyboard shortcuts on your Mac, read OS X Keyboard Shortcuts on Apple’s support website.

Getting Synced with OmniPresence and Omni Sync Server

Available on the Mac and iPad, OmniOutliner is an essential tool for all your outlining needs. And when it comes to protecting those documents and sharing them between OmniOutliner on your Mac and OmniOutliner on your iPad, we have something a little extra-special for you: OmniPresence and Omni Sync Server.

• OmniPresence is a free utility that you install on your Mac for synchronizing files. OmniPresence runs in the background, watching a “connected folder.” It makes sure the files inside are in sync with files in the cloud (a WebDAV server of your choice), and with your OmniPresence-enabled iPad apps.

  On iPad, OmniPresence is built into all of our current document-based apps, including OmniOutliner 2 and OmniGraffle 2. You’ll access OmniPresence folders and files from within the app’s respective Resource Browsers. The result is that all of your OmniPresence-enabled devices detect changes wherever you make them, and constantly sync up to keep your files up to date.

  To get started, you’ll need to download OmniPresence for Mac from our website.

  Note
  OmniPresence isn’t a replacement for your current sync solution for OmniFocus or OmniPlan:

  • OmniFocus uses its own built-in sync code (rather than OmniPresence) to push database changes to a WebDAV server and retrieve them from it; OmniFocus for Mac doesn’t require OmniPresence to be installed for its sync to function to work.
  • OmniPlan uses a publish-and-subscribe feature for sharing project files. For example, you can create a project plan in OmniPlan and share it (publish) with people on the team who are responsible for certain tasks. In turn, they subscribe to the project so they can see and report on the tasks they’re assigned.

• Omni Sync Server is a magical box that lives in a well-air conditioned room with our other servers and a herd of unicorns. Omni Sync Server is our own custom WebDAV server and it functions as a central hub for all your syncing needs; it’s what OmniPresence connects to when shuttling files between your Mac and iOS devices.

  With Omni Sync Server, we never ever look at your data without your permission. For example, when our Support Humans are working with you to restore a corrupt file or isolate a particular issue you’re having with our server. Beyond that, you can rest assured that your data is safe and secure on Omni Sync Server.

To use Omni Sync Server, you’ll first need to sign up for an account. Don’t worry, though, it’s free. If you don’t have an account already, head over to our website and sign up for an Omni Sync Server account today. Like, right now.

How Synchronization Works

Before diving in to the nuts and bolts of getting everything set up on your Mac, it’s worth taking a moment to discuss how syncing with OmniPresence works.

With OmniPresence turned on, the WebDAV server you designate (either Omni Sync Server or your own or a third-party WebDAV server) manages synchronization so that your files are always up to date. With each subsequent sync, OmniPresence compares your local files and applies any differences to your files on the server. This ensures that your files are not just up to date, they’re available wherever—and whenever—you need them.

We’ve also built in an automatic sync mechanism. When you save an OmniOutliner file to an OmniPresence-enabled folder (or when an Auto Save occurs), OmniPresence updates the file on the sync server. At a bare minimum, OmniPresence checks in with Omni Sync Server every hour and compares files in your sync folder. If nothing has changed, OmniPresence quietly goes back to watching over your files. This helps ensure that your OmniOutliner files are always safe, secure, and most importantly—up to date.

Installing OmniPresence

If you clicked the earlier link to download OmniPresence for Mac (or this one right here), you’ll find the installer package in the Downloads folder on your Mac:

To install OmniPresence, follow these steps:

1. Open a Finder window and go to the Downloads folder on your Mac.
2. Locate and then double-click the file, OmniPresence-1.3.dmg.

   Note
   The filename you see might be slightly different. As of this writing, OmniPresence for Mac is at version 1.3 (thus the filename, OmniPresence-1.3.dmg). If you see a different number in the filename, don’t be worried; just go ahead and double-click that one. It just means that our engineering team have been hard at work to improve OmniPresence for Mac.

3. After agreeing to our license, you’re presented with the following window:

   

4. Drag and drop the OmniPresence.app icon onto the Applications folder to install OmniPresence on your Mac.

   

5. Close that window with Command-W
6. In the Finder window, eject the disk image.
7. In the Finder window, return to your Downloads folder. Select the file OmniPresence-1.1.dmg and press Command-Delete to move the file to your Trash. The next time you empty the Trash, that disk image will be purged from your system, saving you precious disk space. (You’re welcome!)

Even if you’re only using OmniOutliner on your Mac, syncing is recommended for the automated data backup it provides. Best of all, our Omni Sync Server is free, and we take care of managing the servers so your data is always available when you need it most.

Starting OmniPresence and Connecting to Omni Sync Server

With OmniPresence installed on your Mac, it’s time to get it started and either create or connect to an existing Omni Sync Server account.

Let’s get started! (No pun intended. Okay, maybe.)

1. Open a Finder window, and choose Applications in the Finder’s sidebar. (If you don’t see it there, choose Go ▸ Applications, or use Shift-Command-A.)

   

2. Scroll down in the list of applications installed on your Mac and locate OmniPresence.app.
3. Double-click the OmniPresence.app icon to open the app. OmniPresence installs and then pops open a menu extra in the menu bar; this is where you’ll configure and control OmniPresence.
4. Click Set Up Syncing:

   

5. Click Create a Synced Folder:

   

6. In the sheet that appears, you have the option to name the OmniPresence folder that lives on your Mac. We’ve pre-filled the New Folder with OmniPresence, but you can change this to whatever you’d like.

   Also, this folder is created within your Documents folder. You can also change this to something else, if you’d like. For example, you could opt to have your OmniPresence folder reside at the bottom level of your Home folder.

   

   When you’ve settled on a name and location for your OmniPresence folder—or if you’ve decided to go with the default options—click Save. This creates the folder OmniPresence uses to synchronize your files.

7. After creating the OmniPresence folder, your next task is to choose a server in the cloud where OmniPresence stores your synced files.

   

   You have two options to choose from:

   • Omni Sync Server: This is Omni’s free file server, which has specifically been designed to work in unison with OmniPresence.
   • Web Server: This could be your own WebDAV server, or a WebDAV server hosted by a third-party provider.

   If you have an Omni Sync Server account, enter your Account Name and Password in the applicable fields and click Connect.

   Note
   If you haven’t already set up an Omni Sync Server account, click Sign Up for an Omni Sync Server Account. This opens your default web browser and transports you to the Omni Sync Server site where you can sign up for an account and set your password.

8. After clicking Connect, OmniPresence connects to the server you’ve chosen and tests for server compatibility. This is more of an issue with third-party WebDAV servers than it is for connecting to Omni Sync Server, which has been designed to work with OmniPresence.

   

   OmniPresence lets you know if it is able to connect to Omni Sync Server (or the WebDAV server you’ve specified).

9. Click the checkbox for Open OmniPresence at Login if you would like OmniPresence to start up whenever your log into your Mac.

   

   At the bottom of that window, click Open Synced Folder. This syncs your OmniPresence folder with Omni Sync Server (or a WebDAV server). If you already have an Omni Sync Server account, OmniPresence creates new synchronized versions of those files in the folder you’ve specified.

   

That’s it! Once OmniPresence connects with Omni Sync Server and creates the sync folder on your Mac, you’re ready to go. Whenever you create files with OmniOutliner, be sure to save them to your OmniPresence folder (~/Documents/OmniPresence). OmniPresence syncs the files whenever you save, or when an Auto Save takes place on your Mac.

OmniPresence Tips

Here are some helpful tips for enhancing your OmniPresence experience:

• You can create subfolders within the main OmniPresence folder for the files you sync. For example, you could have subfolders for OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle, OmniPlan, and OmniFocus, as well as other files you want to sync.
• You can Pause and Resume syncing by clicking the OmniPresence icon in the menu bar.

• Click the Action menu (the gear next to the Pause/Resume button) for a host of OmniPresence options, including:

  

  • About OmniPresence
  • Release Notes
  • Open at Login
  • Check for Updates
  • Preferences and Privacy
  • OmniPresence Help
  • Contact Omni
  • Quit OmniPresence
• To stop syncing a folder you’ve connected, click its Info button and choose Disconnect. The folder on your Mac will be moved to the Trash and the files inside will no longer be synced. Any files left in the folder before disconnecting will stay safe and sound at the cloud server location you’ve specified. To reconnect and start syncing with those files again, just create a new folder connected to that cloud location.

  

• Unsure of when OmniPresence last synced? Click the OmniPresence icon in the menubar and then look beneath each folder name to see the date and time that folder last synced.

  

Using the Resource Browser

Unless you’ve set OmniOutliner’s preferences differently, the first thing you’ll see when you launch OmniOutliner is the new Resource Browser. The Resource Browser (File ▸ Resource Browser; Command-N or Shift-Command-N) makes it easy for you to open a recently-saved file, or to create awesome looking documents by starting out with a Template.

The sidebar on the left makes it easy for you to choose a file that you’ve recently worked on, or to select one of the pre-styled templates that we include with OmniOutliner 4.

The Recents section is similar to choosing File ▸ Open Recent from the menu bar. You’ll find a list of recently-opened files from which you can select and open quickly.

The Templates section offers a quick and easy way for you to open one of the pre-styled templates we’ve included with OmniOutliner. If you’re not sure which template to choose, you can click on one and tap the Spacebar to open a QuickLook view of the template file.

To close the QuickLook view, just tap the Spacebar again and the preview window goes away.

Managing and Working with Templates

Any file that you save as a template (File ▸ Save As Template) is available from the Resource Browser in the Templates section.

To manage your templates, use the Action menu at the bottom of the Resource Browser; it’s the one that looks like a small gear (). First, select one of the templates, and then click the Action menu and choose Show in Finder. A new Finder window pops open and places you inside the Templates folder. Once here, there’s no limit to what you can do with the templates. You can change their names, move the ones you don’t want to the trash, or add subfolders so you can categorize template files for certain tasks.

Using the Resource Browser’s Action Menu

Use the Action menu () to open or create new templates, reveal where a particular resource lives on your Mac in the Finder, move an object to Trash, or set a particular template that you’re fond of as the default.

If you would like to import your OmniOutliner 3 templates, you can choose Add Resources to Library to select a file or template you’d like to add to OmniOutliner’s library.

You can use the Restore option in the Action menu to restore any of the default templates that you might have trashed earlier. Even if you delete these files from the Templates folder, copies of the templates files reside within the app.

Let’s say that one sleepless night you decided that you didn’t need any of the templates we’ve included with OmniOutliner. Blurry-eyed, you open the Resource Browser, and then one by one, choose Action ▸ Move to Trash. After all that work, you empty the trash, close your laptop and drift off to sleep. Then, around 5:38 a.m. you awake with a start and have this incredible idea for what you know will be a best-selling novel. Great. You’ve trashed the Book Draft template. What are you going to do? Fortunately, we thought about this for you. If you choose Action ▸ Restore ▸ Templates you can choose from any (or all) of the templates we’ve included with OmniOutliner and put them back on your Mac.

Using the Toolbar

Along the top of OmniOutliner’s window is the Toolbar. Packed with buttons and fully customizable—even at the per-document level if you have OmniOutliner 4.3 Pro—the toolbar makes it easy for you to create spiffy outlines.

At opposing ends of the toolbar, you’ll find buttons for hiding and showing the Sidebar and the Inspectors. Above those, you’ll find the standard OS X window controls for Closing or Hiding the window or zooming to Full Screen mode.

At the center of the toolbar along the top, you’ll see a Document Icon which you might assume does nothing other than tell you what type of file this is. But if you hold down the Command key (⌘) and click that icon, you’ll get a tiny menu that shows you where the file is stored on your Mac. This is sometimes handy for when you’re working on duplicated files and you can’t remember where you saved the last revision.

Next to the Document Icon is the Filename. If you hover over the filename with the mouse pointer, a small chevron appears to its right. Clicking this chevron opens a small popup window, in which you can change the name of the file, add keyword/metadata tags to help make the file easier to find using Spotlight, or even move the file to another location on your Mac.

Customizing the Toolbar

As noted earlier, the Toolbar is packed with a variety of tools. However, you can customize the toolbar by adding additional buttons or rearranging their order, to suit your needs.

To customize the toolbar, choose View ▸ Customize Toolbar or Control-click on the toolbar and select Customize Toolbar. When you do, a sheet slides down from under the toolbar, revealing a slew of function-related buttons that you can drag up to the toolbar. For example, you could add the Group and Ungroup buttons to the toolbar. When you’ve finished making changes to the toolbar, click Done.

If you don’t like the changes you’ve made, or if you ever want to reset the toolbar to its default set, all you need to do is drag the bottom row up to the toolbar and then click Done to save the changes. The changes you’ve made to the toolbar are saved along with OmniOutliner’s preferences, so that you’ll see the same toolbar options with every document you create.

(Pro) If you have OmniOutliner 4 Pro, you can create document-specific toolbars by choosing View ▸ Create Document-Specific Toolbar.

You’ll start out with a bare-bones toolbar—containing only the Sidebar and Inspect buttons along with a long Flexible Space “button”—to which you can add whatever buttons you’d like. If you decide later that you no longer want that custom toolbar, choose View ▸ Remove Document-Specific Toolbar and the toolbar reverts back to the default button set.

Using the Toolbar’s Action Menu

If you’ve customized the toolbar to include the Action menu, you’ll notice that it behaves slightly different from the Action menu you find in the Resource Browser.

The toolbar’s Action menu includes many of the commonly used options that you’ll find in the Edit, Format, View, and Organize menus. Rather than spreading these out over four different menus, we’ve placed the ones we feel you’ll use most in this compact Action menu for every doc you’re working on.

Attaching Files

Outlines aren’t just about text. Sure, they mostly are, but every now and then you’re going to want to attach something—an image, a movie clip you’ve shot on your iPhone, a PDF file, another OmniOutliner file—to the document you’re working on. Fortunately, OmniOutliner can accommodate all your document-attaching needs.

To attach a file, you can do one of the following:

• Drag anything in from anywhere, including files from a Finder window or text and images from a webpage.
• Click the paperclip icon in the Toolbar.
• Choose Edit ▸ Attach File.
• Click the toolbar’s Action menu and choose Attach File.

When attaching files by any method other than dragging and dropping things into OmniOutliner, you are presented with a file chooser, that looks very much like a Finder window. Use the file chooser to navigate through your Mac’s hard drive until you locate the file you’d like to attach.

In the chooser, you’ll notice two options that affect how the file is attached to your OmniOutliner document:

• Embed the file in the document—The default, this is fairly obvious what happens: A copy of the file you’ve attached is embedded within the OmniOutliner file you’re presently working on.
• Create a link to the file—Rather than embedding an exact duplicate of the file, as with the previous option, this copies the file’s location on your Mac’s hard drive into the OmniOutliner document.

You may not notice the difference between those two options when you’re working on your system. Attach a file using either option and the files appear within your Outline. The big difference, comes into play when you send your OmniOutliner document to someone else. For that, you’ll want to go with the default option (Embed the file in the document) so the person you’re sending the file to will also receive the attachment. If you choose the other option, all they’ll see is an icon and the filename of the file you’ve attached from your Mac. The problem is, because that file is on your Mac, they won’t be able to view or open that file.

When you attach an image or PDF file, a preview automatically scales to the width of the column in which it appears. Other types of files appear as an icon with their filename.

If you click an image or PDF file you’ve attached, the following popover menu appears:

You can choose to have the attachment Show as Image or Show as Icon, and you can change the Display name for the attached file from its filename (the default) to something more descriptive. Non-image files won’t have the Show as Image and Show as Icon buttons along the top. To open the file, click the Open with button, which recommends an app to use based on the kind of file you’ve attached.

Recording Audio

One of the many cool features in OmniOutliner 4 are the improvements we’ve made to its audio recording capabilities. To record something, click the Start Recording button in the toolbar; it’s the one that looks like an old-timey microphone. OmniOutliner starts recording the instant you click that button. When you press that button, you’ll also notice a couple changes in the user interface.

First, the text for the microphone button in the toolbar changes from Start Recording to End Recording. The button also has a small Stop button applied to it. The other change you’ll notice is a red Recording bar appears just beneath the toolbar. If you’ve used OmniOutliner 2 for iPad, this looks very familiar.

In the center of the Recording bar, you’ll see a button to Pause recording, which changes the Recording bar’s color to gray, and a checkmark button (Save) to stop recording. In the gray bar, you’ll notice that Recording has changed to Paused, and the Pause button has been replaced with a Resume button.

Click the Resume button to continue recording where you left off, or click the checkmark (Save) button to stop recording. When you stop recording, an audio player clip shows up in your Outline.

Much like attachments, if you click an audio clip’s Info button (the little i icon at its right edge), a display options popover appears. Here you can opt to have the audio clip show up as a player (the default) or as an icon. More importantly, you can change the audio clip’s Display name from a random number string, to something more descriptive. This is particularly important if you choose Show as Icon at the top of the popover.

Be sure to read the Audio Recording Preferences section later in this guide for more information about audio recording options in OmniOutliner.

Using the Sidebar

Along the left edge of OmniOutliner’s window is the Sidebar. The Sidebar lists the Contents of your outline along with the Styles you’ve used. At the top of the Sidebar, you’ll also find a Search field that makes it easy for you to sift through your outlines and find the information you’re looking for.

The Sidebar is open by default, but you can hide and show it again by choosing View ▸ Hide/Show Sidebar (Option-Command–1), or by clicking the Sidebar button in the toolbar. The Contents and Styles sections are independently scrollable within the Sidebar, so they can handle all of the content and styles you throw at them.

If you mouse over the right edge of the Sidebar, or the split line between the Contents and Styles sections, you’ll notice that the mouse pointer changes to a resizing handle. Click and drag the resizing handles to resize the sections of the Sidebar, or the Sidebar itself.

The Contents Pane

The upper half of the Sidebar displays the Contents of your outline in a collapsable, scrollable pane.

Rows with children have a disclosure triangle on the left edge. To view the children, click the disclosure triangle to flip open the list. Option-click a disclosure triangle to open or close all of the rows within.

When you click on the text for a row in Contents section, the Outline view changes to Focus on just that row and any of its children. This makes it easy for you to focus on one particular section of your outline without getting distracted by everything else in your document.

OmniOutliner retains a history of the rows you’ve focused on, and you can step back through that history by choosing View ▸ Unfocus (Option-Shift-Command-F). To bring your entire document back into view, choose View ▸ Unfocus All.

Searching Within Your Outline

If you have a long document, OmniOutliner’s integrated search field can save the day when you need to find something that’s buried many levels deep in your outline. At the top of the Contents pane, you’ll see a little magnifying glass icon (); click that to reveal the search bar. You can also get to the search field by choosing Edit ▸ Find ▸ Show Search (Option-Command-F).

OmniOutliner starts and adjusts the search criteria with every character you type, and the search results appear underneath the search bar. Click the item you’re looking for, and OmniOutliner highlights the row in the outline.

To clear the search field, press Escape or click the little at its right edge. When you’ve finished searching, click Done and the Contents pane reverts back to its former state of showing you everything in your outline. If you were previously focused on a particular row or section of your document, OmniOutliner restores the Contents pane and the Outline view to where you were when you cancelled the search. Optionally, you can choose Edit ▸ Find ▸ Hide Search (Option-Command-F) to make the search field go away.

The Styles Pane

The lower half of the sidebar is the Styles pane. Just like the Contents pane, the Styles pane is independently scrollable within the sidebar. It also has a special flippy button (known as the Hide/Show Styles button) which, when clicked, hides and reveals the Styles pane.

When you click the Hide/Show Styles button, everything in the Styles pane goes into hiding, and the flippy button escorts itself to the bottom-right corner of the sidebar. Click the flippy button again and the Styles pane reappears. This is particularly useful for when all you’re doing is working on your outline and you just want to focus on that in the Contents pane.

The area above the split shows the styled () or unstyled () elements in your document, including a Whole Document item. The area below the split provides you with some Named styles, such as headings, highlights, and a rainbow of text colors you can apply to the contents of your document.

The Styles themselves are separated into two distinct categories—Document Styles and Named Styles:

• Document Styles, located at the top of the Styles pane, list all of the stylable elements in your OmniOutliner document. This includes a Whole Document item, Column Titles, Notes, a Topic column, and styles for the various rows in your document. Row styles are numbered according to their indentation level, and only appear in the list as they are created in the outline.

• Named Styles, located beneath the style separator line, mainly consist of the predefined styles included with the template you started from. Named Styles can be edited by first selecting the style name in the Styles pane and using the Style inspector to adjust the style attributes. To create a new Named Style, click the Add button (+) at the lower-left corner of the Styles pane. You can delete Named Styles by first selecting the style in the Styles pane, and then choosing Delete Style from the Action menu at the bottom of the sidebar.

To familiarize yourself with the Styles pane:

• Click the flippy Hide/Show Styles button a few times so you get the hang of how this works.
• Click the Add (+) button to create a new Named style.
• Click the Action button to open a mini-menu for creating new Named styles, duplicating or deleting a style, copying and pasting style properties, and for clearing styles from a selection.

By now you’ve probably been wondering what all of those little colored squares are that appear next to the styles in the Styles pane. We call these little squares Style Swatches, and very soon, you’ll see how powerful Style Swatches can be.

Style Swatches provide you with a visual representation of the style:

Style Swatches with a two-toned blue checkerboard pattern means that there are a multitude of style properties for that element.

An empty Style Swatch with a dashed border means there are no styles for that particular row or column. These elements automatically adopt the Whole Document style for the template you’ve chosen.

A Style Swatch that’s split diagonally with a darker shade on the upper half means that the style applies a transparent background color to the selection.

and

Solid squares with a letter A inside are text-specific styles, such as the font and its color.

We’ll show you how to create and apply Document and Named Styles later in Working in OmniOutliner.

Using the Inspectors

The Inspectors reside in a floating window which you can open by clicking the Inspect button at the right edge of the toolbar. Other ways you can open the Inspector are by choosing Window ▸ Show/Hide Inspectors, or by using the Shift-Command-I keyboard shortcut.

To switch between the Inspectors, click one of the buttons in the Inspector’s toolbar along the top. If you’re not sure which button opens which inspector, hover over the button with your mouse and the name of that inspector appears at the top of the Inspector.

Inspector Behaviors

Before diving in to explore what’s possible with each inspector, it’s worth taking a quick look at a couple (possibly unknown) features that we’ve built in.

If you have the Inspector window open while you’re working in a multicolumn Outline, you’ll notice that the inspector automatically switches over to the Column inspector whenever you select a column heading. This makes it easy for you to set or change the column Type and its Summary behavior.

As you’re working in OmniOutliner, you’ll notice that whenever you are entering text in a row or column cell that the Style inspector is always available in the inspector window. However, if you want a particular inspector to show up as you’re moving along, you can double-click on the inspector icon in the Inspector window’s toolbar. This places a tiny green lock on the inspector so that it’s always available. To unlock the inspector, just double-click it again.

This comes in particularly handy when you want to examine the styles in your outline. Just place the lock on the Style Attributes inspector, and click around in your document to examine and tweak the styles as needed.

Style Inspector

Use the Style inspector when you want to change the appearance of the rows in your document.

Type Styles

This section of the Styles inspector provides you with a variety of controls for changing the appearance of the text in your document:

Typeface, Size, and Color

Choose the font, size, and color for the selected text or row.

Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, and Underline

Click to apply the default Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, or Underline styles to the selected text or row. At the lower right of these buttons you’ll see a teeny-tiny triangle that’s pointing downward. This lets you know that there are additional options from which you can select. You can either click on the tiny arrows, or just click and hold to reveal the optional attributes menus:

Paragraph Styles

Choose the attributes for the rows within your document:

Text Alignment

The next row of buttons are used to left-, center-, right-align, or justified text.

Line Height (Pro)

Choose from a range of single to double spacing for your document. Line height adds spacing above the text within a row, where as Padding adds spacing between rows.

Background

Set the Background color for the selected row. Click the arrows on the right edge to choose from one of the presets we’ve offered, or click the color bar to open the Colors palette. Use the Colors palette to choose a custom color.

Row Features

Use these controls to set row features:

Handle (Pro)

Determines whether the row handle is always visible, only visible when you hover over the row, or never visible. Hiding the row handles makes it a little harder to drag and reorder your content; however, you can use the options in Organize ▸ Move to move rows up, down, left, or right.

Numbering

Choose a numbering style to use for the rows in your document. See Row Numbering for more information about numbering styles.

Gutter

Set a color to use for the gutter (the area where the row handle and status checkbox appear). Click the arrows on the right edge to choose from one of the presets we’ve offered, or choose Other to open the Colors palette.

The main purpose of a Gutter color is to help you see which level a row is on. As you can see in the previous image, the Gutter expands inward as child rows are added. If you set a Background color but do not set a Gutter color, the Gutter adopts the Background color automatically.

Padding Styles

Padding, unlike Line Height, adds spacing inside of rows, notes, and their children:

Row Padding

Set the amount of space (in pixels) above and below the text within the row. (As of OmniOutliner v4.1, Row Padding is available in both Standard and Pro editions.)

Above Note (Pro)

Set the amount of space above an inline note.

Above Children (Pro)

Set the amount of space between a parent row and its children.

Below Children (Pro)

Set the amount of space below a parent row’s children.

Page Breaking (Pro)

Choose to insert a page break before a row:

Start a New Page (Pro)

Determines whether the currently selected row forces the start of a new page. When you select this option, a red dashed line appears above the row, as if you were going to cut the document with a pair of scissors. This is specifically for the purposes of printing or exporting to PDF.

Indentation (Pro)

Choose whether child rows are indented:

Indent Children

Choose whether to indent a row’s children. If you choose to not indent children, it might be hard to determine which is the parent and which is the child row. As such, you might want to style child rows differently, perhaps giving them a different background color or shade, reducing the font size, and so on.

Named Styles

Choose a Named style to apply:

Included Styles

This popup menu lets you select and apply one of the Named styles, listed in the lower portion of the Styles section of the Sidebar.

Column Inspector

The Column inspector has two popup menus for setting column attributes:

Type

New columns always start out as Rich Text; however, you can change this to suit the needs of your outline to one of the following:

Checkbox

Unlike the Status Checkboxes that live as an integral part of the main Topic column, Checkbox columns can be used for anything from giving you another checkbox to tick off, to monitoring the state of something, and even for ratings. You can add as many Checkbox columns as you’d like, and you can show or hide them as needed with the options in View ▸ Columns.

When used in combination with OmniOutliner’s sorting features (Organize ▸ Keep Sorted or Organize ▸ Sort Outline), checkboxes can be used to denote a Yes or No (binary) state for almost anything—feature comparisons, things that need to be reviewed, and so on.

Date

Choose a date and optional time format to use in the column. The default date string is based on your locale, which is configured in System Preferences ▸ Language & Region. One of the many additions to OmniOutliner 4 is a new and improved date parsing logic that lets you type stuff like now, yesterday, 2d, september, thu, or –5w in a date column and have it know what you mean.

Use the Format menu to choose how dates and times are displayed in a date column. You can choose from a Short, Medium, or Long time string, or opt for something a bit more technical such as ISO 8601 (UTC) so you can show your friends just how nerdy you are.

Not satisfied with the options and formats we’ve provided? Choose Custom Format to create your own special date and time string to use for a Date-formatted column.

To use the Date Format Editor, just drag the items you’d like as part of the date/time string up to the field at the top of the dialog window. Items, such as Day of the Week or Month, have additional formats which you can choose by clicking the downward-pointing arrow. By default, the custom format uses slashes ( / ) for the delimiter, but you can enter another character (or different characters) or remove them entirely, if you’d like.

Duration

Use a Duration column for estimating or tracking the amount of time a task or project takes. For example, if you’re using OmniOutliner to make a list of all the things you want to do this weekend, you might add a Duration column so you can estimate how long it will take you to categorize your comic book collection and whether you should prioritize that over painting the garage.

Use the Settings popup menu to select from Work Time, Calendar Time, or to use a Custom time of your choosing. OmniOutliner formats the duration time based on the Setting you’ve chosen; for example, 12h in Calendar Time is equivalent to 1d 4h in Work Time (assuming an 8 hour workday). If you turn on Long format, OmniOutliner spells out the time durations; for example, 1d 4h gets expanded to 1 day 4 hours.

Use the hours per day, hours per week, and hours per month fields to adjust or fine-tune the Duration settings to suit your needs. For example, we prefer to have an 8-hour workday so we can have a great work-life balance, while the folks at a law firm or ad agency might enjoy working 80 hours per week.

Number

Choose Number as as the column Type when you have a numbered value that you’d like to monitor.

Using the Format popup menu, you can choose from:

• 9,999.99—Numbers with a two-digit decimal at the end. Large numbers will use a comma to separate thousands.
• 9999.99—Numbers with a two-digit decimal.
• 10000—Whole numbers; decimal numbers are rounded up or down to the nearest whole number. For example, 2.67 is rounded up to 3, while 3.14 is rounded down to 3.
• 10000%—A whole number percentage; a decimal number that gets entered is rounded up or down to the nearest whole number. For example, 2.67% is rounded up to 3%, while 3.14% is rounded down to 3%.
• 99.99%—Percentages with a two-digit decimal value, if needed. For example, 99% appears as that and not 99.00%, while 3.14159% is rounded to 3.14%.
• $9,999.99—Use this option for representing currency values based on the localized values you’ve set in System Preferences ▸ Language & Region ▸ Region. For example, if your Region is set to Asia ▸ Japan, the currency value would show up with the Yen symbol (¥).

Pop-up List

Choose the Pop-up List type when you have a column of repeating “options” that you need to choose from. For example, if you have a template document for creating recipes, you might want to create a Measurements column with options such as ounce, ounces, gram, and grams (to name just a few). Now when you go to enter an amount, all you have to do is select the applicable option from the Pop-up List rather than having to enter the text over and over again.

Pop-up cells now use OmniFocus’s Smart Match technology. As you type characters, OmniOutliner tries to guess the item you want—and those characters don’t have to be at the beginning or contiguous either.

What’s more, if you enter a new term that isn’t already defined as part of the Pop-up List, you can enter Command-Return to add it to the list.

Rich Text

Choose Rich Text for regular text; this is the default column style for new columns.

Summary

The first and most important thing to know about Column Summaries is that they only appear on the parent row for a group. For example, if you have a two column document that lists pricing information for a bunch of parts that you need, and you choose Summary ▸ Total, you’ll probably wonder “Where’s the total at?”. But if you group those rows together by selecting the rows and choosing Reorganize ▸ Group (Option-Command-L), you’ll see all kinds of magic happen.

First, you’ll notice that all of the rows you selected were indented and placed under a new parent row. And in that parent row, the total appears in the column with all of the pricing information, but with a gray background to the cell. The gray background is a transparent layer of black, which slightly darkens any background color you’ve assigned to the row style.

The options in the Summary popup menu change depending on what you’ve selected in the Type popup menu:

Checkbox

Summary options include:

None

There is no summary; the summary cell displays a checkbox that acts completely independent of its children.

State

Displays an empty checkbox if no items have been checked off, a checkbox with a dash inside if some items have been checked, or a filled checkbox if all of the items have been checked.

Hidden

The summary cell is empty, regardless of the state of the other checkboxes in the column.

Date

Summary options include:

None

There is no summary.

Minimum

The summary cell displays the earliest date (or time) in the column from among the child rows.

Maximum

The summary cell displays the latest date (or time) in the column from among the child rows.

Hidden

The summary cell is empty.

Duration

Summary options include:

None

There is no summary.

Total

The summary cell displays the total of all cells in the column.

Minimum

The summary cell displays the lowest duration in the column.

Maximum

The summary cell displays the highest duration in the column.

Average Leaves

The summary cell displays the average duration for the child items under the parent row in that column.

Hidden

The summary cell is empty.

Number

Summary options include:

None

There is no summary.

Total

The summary cell displays the total of all cells in the column.

Minimum

The summary cell displays the lowest number in the column.

Maximum

The summary cell displays the highest number in the column.

Average Leaves

The summary cell displays the average number for the child items under the parent row in that column. This only averages descendant leaves, which means that all contained rows with no children—no matter how many levels away they are—are averaged.

Hidden

The summary cell is empty.

Pop-up List

Summary options include:

Minimum

If the Pop-up List contains numbers, the summary cell displays the lowest number used in that column. If the Pop-up List contains text, the summary cell displays uses the first entry in the Column inspector.

Maximum

If the Pop-up List contains numbers, the summary cell displays the highest number used in that column. If the Pop-up List contains text, the summary cell displays the last entry in the Column inspector.

Hidden

The summary cell is empty.

Rich Text

Summary options include:

None

There is no summary.

Hidden

The summary cell is empty.

Outline Inspector

Use the Outline inspector when you want to adjust the styles that affect the outline as a whole, rather than styles that can be applied to a certain part of the outline.

Alternate rows

Use the Alternate rows option to set a background color to alternating rows in your document. You can choose from one of the preset color options (Subtle Gray, Subtle Green, or Subtle Blue), or click the color bar next to it to choose a custom color or background pattern from the Colors palette.

Horizontal grid

Use the Horizontal grid option to add a thin line of color between the rows in your document. You can choose from one of the preset color options (Subtle Gray, Strong Gray, Subtle Green, Strong Green, Subtle Blue, Strong Blue, Subtle Red, Strong Red), or click the color bar next to it to choose a custom color or background pattern from the Colors palette.

Vertical grid

Use the Vertical grid option to add a thin line of color between the columns in your document. You can choose from one of the preset color options (Subtle Gray, Strong Gray, Subtle Green, Strong Green, Subtle Blue, Strong Blue, Subtle Red, Strong Red), or click the color bar next to it to choose a custom color or background pattern from the Colors palette.

Column headers

Choose whether to Show or Hide column headers. The Automatic option shows any text you’ve entered for a header, but hides the generic Topic header if you have only one column in your document. You can also do this by choosing View ▸ Column Headers ▸ Show/Automatic/Hide.

Using Grid Lines and Columns for Creative Templates

You can combine the Horizontal and Vertical grid to create documents that resemble a ruled sheet of paper. Just add another column and then change the font size for column headers, and you’ll get something like this:

Of course, that required a bit more tweaking (and not much, honestly), but you get the general idea, right? OmniOutliner makes it easy for you to customize documents and create templates that suit your every note-taking need.

Show row status

Choose this option if you want to display the Status Checkboxes along the left side of every row. These are different from the Checkbox option you can set on a column, in that Status Checkboxes are always located on the left edge of and follow the indentation level of your rows.

Inline notes

These buttons let you decide whether Inline Notes will wrap based on the first column of the document, or if they’ll span the width of all columns. Inline notes, which are styled using the Notes style, appear beneath the text you’ve entered in a row.

(Pro) If you have OmniOutliner Pro, you can opt to have Inline notes appear in a separate pane at the bottom of the Outline (View ▸ Notes ▸ Display in Pane).

Indent child rows (Pro)

This pop-up menu lets you choose how far child rows will be indented. You can choose from one of the options we’ve provided (either 0, 8, 16, or 24 pixels), or enter a value of your liking and press Return.

Document Inspector

Use Document inspector to provide additional information (metadata) about the document you’re working on. The information you provide here stays with the document and makes it easier to find on your Mac using Spotlight.

The first option in the Document inspector, Compress on disk, determines how your Outliner document is saved. This option is document-specific, which means that you can turn this on or off depending on your own needs.

If you check this box, OmniOutliner uses a simple Zip compression to squish your files down to the smallest size possible. Compressed files don’t just take up less space on your hard drive; they’re also easier to send to your friends and colleagues via email.

Leaving the Compress on disk option unchecked means your files won’t be compressed, and they’ll show up in the Finder as taking up a bit more space. You should consider leaving this unchecked if you are saving your OmniOutliner files in a version control or document management system, or so you can more easily run scripts (Python, Ruby, and so on) on the XML inside your document.

The metadata fields in the Document inspector include:

Copyright

Copyright statements typically declare who owns the legal rights to something. Since this is your thing, or your company’s thing, enter your name or your company’s name into this field.

Version

Version numbers are used to indicate a certain “state” of a project. For example, 0.1 might be a beta release while 1.0 might be an initial release. You can even go as far as adding a sub-version number, so you’ll end up with something along the lines of 4.0.1 when you correct a typo or something. The choice is yours, really.

Subject

Enter something similar to what you would enter as the subject line for an email; for example, Staff project assignments for OmniOutliner 5, or Fried Chicken Recipe.

Description

Describe the contents of your OmniOutliner file. For example, A list of bike parts, or Actors who’ve portrayed Batman.

Comments

Use the Comments field to enter more information about the file you’re working on. For example, you could provide additional detail about a project this file is associated with, or notes to yourself about other things that you’d like to add to the file.

Beneath the Comments field, you’ll notice a popup menu that’s set to Authors. This menu works in conjunction with the combo box below for creating metadata attribute and value pairs. What’s that? Too nerdy? Okay, let us explain…

Here’s how to create a metadata attribute and value pair using the popup menu and the combo box:

1. Select one of the options in the popup menu (Authors, Organizations, Languages, Keywords, or Projects, as further described next).

2. Click the Add button (the + sign) at the bottom of the Document inspector.

   

   When you click Add, the focus changes to the box in the middle so you can enter information about the item you’ve selected in the popup menu.

   

3. When you’ve finished entering some text, either press Tab or Return to save the metadata information to the file.

If you decide later that you want to remove an item, select it with the mouse and then click Remove (the − button, next to the Add button). To edit an existing item, double-click to highlight the text, and then enter your changes and press Tab or Return to save the changes.

Options in the popup menu include; all of these options can have multiple entries:

Authors

Enter the name of the person who created the document. This would be you, or perhaps you and a colleague, or you and the cat that won’t get off your lap while you’re working at 2 a.m. Of course, your friends at work might question why Sir Snugglepuss III is contributing to a secret project, but that’s for the lawyers to sort out.

Organizations

Enter the name of your company or the organization the document has been created for.

Languages

Enter the language, such as English or Japanese, or use one of the ISO 639 language codes, such as en or ja, to name a few.

Keywords

Ah, this is where you can have the most fun! Keywords increase the find-ability of your files more than anything else. This is because you can add tons of keywords to your file, and they can be as descriptive or outrageous as you’d like. The key (no pun indented) here is that the keywords are what help make each document unique when it comes to finding files with Spotlight.

Projects

If you’ve created an Outliner file for a specific project, enter the project name here.

As noted earlier, the information you enter in these fields, and through the popup menu, are registered on your Mac as additional metadata for that particular OmniOutliner file. When you do a Spotlight search, by clicking the Spotlight menu in the menu bar (or with Command-Space), all of the information you’ve entered into the Document inspector helps to make your files easier to find.

Now, rather than opening a Finder window and trying to remember where you hid that super secret file, you can press Command-Space, enter one of the keywords or something else that helps you identify the file, and Spotlight brings it up in the list of possibilities.

To open the file, highlight it with your mouse and press Return.

Style Attributes Inspector

At a quick glance, the Style Attributes inspector is a little deceiving. What appears to be a mild-mannered window that shows you all of the styles in your document, is actually quite powerful.

As you apply styles to the rows and columns in your OmniOutliner file, those styles start to show up here in the Style Attributes inspector. What you see in the Style Attributes inspector depends on where the cursor is currently placed in the document. The previous image shows that the cursor was on a Level 2 Row, and that the text in all Level 2 Rows are to be styled as 14pt text with a color of Chalk (which is just plain white).

But let’s say that you want the text in the Level 1 Rows to have that same white text. The easy way to apply that style is to click on the colored square in the middle of the inspector and then drag and drop that onto the Level 1 Row style in the Styles pane of the sidebar, and voila! The text for all Level 1 Rows are now 14pt white. This makes it easy for you to try out different styles. And remember, if you don’t like a change you’ve made, you can always press Command-Z to undo your last change and revert everything to normal.

What makes the Style Attributes inspector particularly useful, however, is that the order of the styles shown matches the priority of how the styles are applied to the selection. This allows you to see how the selected item’s style is calculated, so you can figure out why it looks the way it does. Additionally, you can click the little button at right to clear any styles that are causing you trouble without having to find the control you used to set them.

Working in OmniOutliner

Now that you’ve learned a little bit about what OmniOutliner looks like, and how the sidebar and inspectors work, it’s time to put all of that new-found logic to work. This tutorial takes you through the process of creating your first OmniOutliner document. Along the way, you’ll learn how to create a custom template (or theme) that you can later use on the documents you create.

You’ll learn some of the basic mechanics of OmniOutliner: how to enter text, move around, and ways to organize your content. Following that, you’ll dive in deeper to take a closer look at OmniOutliner’s layering and style model as you build out the styles for your own template.

By the time you’ve reached the end of the tutorial, you’ll have mastered OmniOutliner and should be able to create templates and styles with, well, style.

Let’s get started!

It All Starts with a Template

When you open OmniOutliner, one of the first things you’ll see is the Resource Browser. This handy window gives you access to the existing templates we’ve included with OmniOutliner, as well as any files you’ve recently worked on. It’s quite handy, actually. If for some reason you don’t see the Resource Browser, go ahead and choose File ▸ Resource Browser (Shift-Command-N).

The Resource Browser makes it easy for you to locate and open files you’ve recently worked on (in the Recents section), or to create new documents using one of the existing Templates. Selecting the main Templates heading in the sidebar shows you all of the available templates.

The templates are also categorized based on their style and purpose. For example, you’ll find the Book Draft template in the Writing folder. In the sidebar, select Level Styles folder and then select the Modern with Level Styles template. To get a closer look at the template, press the Spacebar to open a QuickLook view.

Go ahead and tap the Spacebar again to close the QuickLook popup. As you can see, the Modern with Level Styles template is fairly sparse. It has a white background, and some cleanly styled text for the various levels. You can quickly distinguish which level you’re on based on the text styles: Level 1 rows have larger text, and the styles get progressively smaller and less stylish as you go into the Level 2, 3, and 4 rows. This is perfect, and will be the basis of this tutorial, so go ahead and choose the Modern with Level Styles template and then click New Outline. OmniOutliner creates a new Untitled document based on the style theme in the Modern with Level Styles template.

Document Features and Styles

Before going too much further, it’s important to understand some of the structure of an OmniOutliner document. To help illustrate this, do the following:

• Choose View ▸ Column Headers ▸ Show
• Choose View ▸ Show Status Checkboxes

The Outline area should look like the following:

Along the top of the Outline area, you’ll see the Topic column heading, which is the default column heading for the primary (or Topic) column in any OmniOutliner document. You’ll also notice that little checkboxes are placed between each row handle and that row’s content; these are known as Status Checkboxes, and can be used to check things off in a list of things you need to do.

If you move the mouse over the very first row—Level Styles—you’ll notice that a little icon pops up along the left edge. This is the Notes icon. To add a Note to a row, click this icon and an area opens up along the bottom of the row where you can add some additional text. Go ahead and type something in; yours should look something like the following:

After you’ve entered a Note, you’ll notice that the icon is a little darker and is always visible (not just when you move the mouse pointer over a row). This makes it easy for you to see which rows have Notes when you’ve hidden them with View ▸ Hide Note or View ▸ Hide All Notes.

(Pro)
If you have OmniOutliner 4 Pro, you can opt to have Notes appear in a pane along the bottom of the Outline area. To view your Notes in a pane, choose View ▸ Notes ▸ Display in Pane.

Get Your Mind in the Gutter

The point of this exercise—unbeknownst to you—is to highlight all of the things that appear in an outline’s Gutter: the Notes icon, a row handle, and a status checkbox. Depending on how you like to view the content of your outline, you can choose to hide or show all of these independent of one another.

• To hide the Status Checkboxes column, choose View ▸ Hide Status Checkboxes.

With the Notes, Status Checkboxes, and row handles neatly tucked away, your outline takes on a bit of a cleaner feel. If you click in the Gutter (the space to the left of a row’s content), you’ll see that you can still select individual rows.

Get a Handle On Things

Row handles come in two styles: bullets, which means the row doesn’t have any children, and disclosure triangles, which means that the row has child rows indented underneath.

Row handles are handy because they allow you to expand and collapse rows, and they give you something to grab onto when you want to move sections around in your outline. You can still do this when row handles are hidden; just use the Expand and Collapse options in the View menu, or in the Organize ▸ Move submenu. Don’t worry about these right now; all of this is covered later in Organizing Your Content. Now closely examine the different row handles in the following screenshot:

Rows with children—indented rows with additional content—have a disclosure triangle as their row handle. When the triangle is pointing downward, the row has been expanded so you can see the content within. If the triangle is pointing to the right, as with the Section 2 row in the previous image, it means the row has been collapsed to hide its contents. Click on the closed disclosure triangle to expand the row, or click in the gutter to select the row and choose View ▸ Expand Row (Command–9).

You can also use the Left and Right Arrow keys to expand and collapse rows as long as the row is selected. To give this a try, click gutter of the Section 1 row to select it, and then press the Right Arrow key to collapse the list, and then press the Left Arrow key to expand it again.

One trick you’ll find that comes in handy is Option-clicking the disclosure triangles. When you Option-click a disclosure triangle, it automatically hides or expands everything at that level. For example, Option-click the disclosure triangle for the Section 1 row to collapse all of its children.

If you just click on the row handle for Section 1 (the right-pointing disclosure triangle), you’ll see the following:

Notice that the contents of Subsection 1A are collapsed and hidden from view. However, if you were to Option-click on the disclosure triangle instead, all of the rows within that have children also expand.

Take some time to play around with the disclosure triangles to collapse and expand the rows, using a mixture of clicking and Option-clicking so you get the hang of how this works.

Styles, the Style Attributes Inspector, and You

One of the many things that makes OmniOutliner such a fantastic outlining tool is the ability to add style to your content. We have included a bunch of templates and themes with OmniOutliner 4 (none of them are exclusive to Pro users) that you can use wholesale or as a starting point for the outlines you create. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here in this tutorial.

If the Inspector window isn’t open, go ahead and choose Window ▸ Show Inspector. You could also click the Inspector button in the toolbar, but since you’re trying to learn everything about OmniOutliner, try using the keyboard shortcut, Shift-Command-I to open the Inspector window.

You can move the Inspector window around, and when you move it alongside the main window, you’ll notice that it kind of snaps into place. This doesn’t mean that the Inspector window moves in concert with the main window, it’s just something cool that we thought you should know. Give it a try.

In the Outline window, click anywhere beneath the content; somewhere in the vast white space at the bottom of the document. This deselects all of the rows, and leads you to the next step: learning about the Style Attributes inspector.

In the Inspector window’s toolbar, double-click the far-right button (it looks like a checkerboard) to open the Style Attributes inspector. This places a little green lock on the inspector so it always remains active.

The styles you see for Whole Document are the base styles for this particular template. Let’s quickly run through what you see here:

• The base font family is Helvetica Neue).
• The base font size for the outline is 13 points.
• All rows will have a default line height multiple of 1.1, which adds a little padding between each row.
• The writing direction has been set to left-to-write.
• And finally the text background color has been set to Chalk (white).

In the Styles pane of the sidebar, select Level 1 Rows and watch what happens with the Style Attributes inspector; the inspector changes to show you the styles for Level 1 Rows, in addition to the Whole Document styles.

If you look at the Level 1 Rows section of the inspector, you’ll see that defines a font fill color for the text (Gabbro), the font size (30 pt), and the font weight (Light), but no actual font. This is because the font family is defined under the Whole Document styles.

What this means is that Level 1 Rows are styled as dark gray, 30 point Helvetica Neue Light. As you may have guessed, the Whole Document styles set the base “layer” of styles for your document, while the various Level styles can be defined independently so they adopt attributes of the Whole Document style.

The order of the styles in the Style Attributes inspector shows the style hierarchy for the row you’ve selected. To “read” the styles, you start at the bottom of the Style Attributes inspector and work your way up to the top combining properties as you go. For example, if you were to read the Style Attributes inspector to interpret how Level 1 Rows are styled, you could translate that as follows:

Level 1 Rows are dark gray with a white background. Text is left-aligned, 30 point Helvetica Neue Light, with a line height of 1.1.

Click on the Section 1 row in the outline and see how the Style Attributes inspector changes.

This reads as follows:

Level 2 Rows are dark gray with a white background. The text is left-aligned, 18 point Helvetica Neue.

And let’s do this again by first selecting the Subsection 1A row:

Which reads as follows:

Level 3 Rows have a white background. The text is left-aligned, 13 point Helvetica Neue Medium.

There’s one more thing you should know about the Style Attributes inspector. Click in the lower portion of the outline (in the white space) so you see just the Whole Document styles.

If you look to the right of each of the style attributes, you’ll notice a little . As you might guess, if you click on that little , it removes that style attribute from the list. Go ahead and click the next to text background color. Nothing changes in the main window (because OmniOutliner’s default background color is white), but now that style attribute is no longer defined for the Whole Document style.

To bring the text background style back, choose Edit ▸ Undo Delete Style Attribute, or use the Command-Z keyboard shortcut.

Removing the Template Styles

Yes, that’s right: the next thing you’re going to do is to clear out all of the styles in the document you’ve been using. In the sidebar, select all of the styles in the top portion of the Styles pane. Then, click the Action menu at the bottom of the sidebar and choose Clear Style from the menu.

The document looks a lot different, doesn’t it?

You’ll also notice that all of the Style Swatches in the Styles pane of the sidebar are also empty.

This is exactly what we want, because in the remainder of the tutorial, you’ll learn how to create and style your own template. Before moving on, though, choose File ▸ Save (Command-S) to save this document as My Level Styles.oo3 anywhere on your Mac’s hard drive.

Entering Text and Moving Around in OmniOutliner

The next thing that you’re going to learn about OmniOutliner—and this is a bit of a diversion from styling—is how to enter text, move around, and organize the contents of your outlines. While this might sound trivial, it’s an important part of the learning path.

To get started, click somewhere in the white area beneath the text in the outline, and choose Edit ▸ Select All, or use the standard keyboard shortcut, Command-A. Now press Delete to clear all of the text out of the outline. As you can see, both the document, and the Style Attributes inspector, are clear of any content. The only thing that remains is the Topic heading for the outline; you can leave that alone for right now.

Entering text is simple. Start out by double-clicking on the Topic heading and enter My Level Styles. This will be the new Topic heading for the contents of your outline. To enter text on the rows of your outline, click beneath the My Level Styles heading and enter Level 1 Row. Pressing Return at the end of the first line moves you down to the next row.

A couple things you’ll notice is that the Contents pane of the sidebar recognizes the text you enter as you’re entering it into the outline area. Also, the rows get row handles by default. To add more rows, do the following on the next and subsequent rows:

• Enter Level 2 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 3 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 3 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 2 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 3 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 3 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 1 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 2 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 2 Row and press Return
• Enter Level 1 Row

Your document should look like the following:

Now let’s add some depth to the outline by indenting the rows. To navigate around in the outline, use the Up and Down arrow keys on your keyboard. You can also just click in a row gutter to select a row. If you want to select multiple rows, Command-click in the row gutters. Go ahead and Command-click on the row handles for all of the rows that say Level 3 Row. Your document should look like this:

There are a couple of ways that you can indent these Level 3 Rows. The easiest way is to just press the Tab key; the other way is to choose Organize ▸ Indent (Command-]). As you can see, the Level 3 Rows are indented, and the rows that precede them now have a disclosure triangle.

Now do the same with the Level 2 Rows:

• Command-click all of the Level 2 Rows
• Press Tab or use Command-] to indent the selected rows

Your document should look like this:

As you can see, the Level 2 Rows are children of the Level 1 Rows, and the Level 3 Rows are children of the Level 2 Rows, making them grandchildren of the Level 1 Rows. Indentation adds hierarchical depth to your outlines, making it easy for you to organize lists of information quickly.

Before moving on to the next section, one final bit of text entry you should do is to add some text to the Notes for the Level 1 Rows. You do this by moving the mouse pointer over row and then click the Notes icon in the gutter.

It doesn’t really matter what you enter there—it could be your address, or the name of your favorite Rush album—just as long as you have some text in place that you can style later in this tutorial. When you’ve finished, your document should look something like the following:

This now gives you enough content to use as placeholder text for the document you’ll eventually turn into a template. Go ahead and choose File ▸ Save (Command-S) to save the document before moving on to the next section.

Organizing Your Content

OmniOutliner helps you create detailed lists, and to go with that, it includes some powerful features for helping you organize the content in your outline. Here we’ll show you how to move whole sections around using the Move menu options and how to create Groups to add depth to your content.

Reorganizing and Moving Content Around

There are a few ways you can reorganize the content in your outline. The most frequent—and often misused—way is with Cut and Paste from the Edit menu. In many cases, you don’t want to Cut the content from your document, you just want to move it around, and for that, look to the options in the Organize ▸ Move menu.

To use these options, you can either click on the text within a row or click in the gutter for the row that you want to move. If you click in the gutter of a row that has children, the parent row and the children are selected. For example, click in the gutter of the second Level 2 Row; you’ll notice that the two Level 3 Rows are also selected.

Now let’s say that you wanted to move the second Level 2 Row and its children to the last Level 1 Row so it has some children. You can click on the row handle (in this case, the open disclosure triangle) and drag it downward and drop and insert it within the list. As you start to drag the content down, you’ll notice a couple of things that will help you find the right place to relocate the content.

• First, you’ll notice a little bubble just above the mouse pointer that tells you how many rows you’re moving (in this case, you’re moving 3 rows).

• Next, you’ll see an insertion bar appear in the content list to show you where the content will be placed when you let go of the mouse button. As you drag the Level 2 Row and its children downward, the insertion bar pops in between rows to indicate a possible drop point.

• And finally, if you are moving something into another section, the parent row for that section is highlighted temporarily to indicate that you’re moving content to that section.

When you let go of the mouse button, the content you’ve dragged drops into place and takes up residence as new child rows for the parent row.

If you click the disclosure triangle on the last Level 1 Row, you’ll notice that the rows you’ve moved there collapse within. Click the disclosure triangle again to open it back up.

Another way you can organize the content is by using the Move options within the Organize menu. Let’s say that you want to move that final Level 1 Row and its children up to the beginning of the document. Start by clicking in the gutter next to the final Level 1 Row to select it and its children:

Next, choose Organize ▸ Move ▸ Move Up; you’ll notice that it moves up above the previous Level 1 Row to take the middle position in the document.

Choose Organize ▸ Move ▸ Move Up again to move the middle section up to the top of the document.

Also found in the Organize ▸ Move menu, you’ll see options for Move Right and Move Left (with corresponding keyboard shortcuts of Control-Command-Right Arrow and Control-Command-Left Arrow, respectively). These options are analogous to the Organize ▸ Indent and Organize ▸ Outdent menu options. You can use these interchangeably based on whatever’s easier for you to do.

The important thing to keep in mind when you move a row left or right is that you’re changing the row’s level. If you have a Level 1 Row and you move it right, it now becomes a Level 2 Row and it adopts that row level’s style. Conversely, if you move a Level 2 Row left, it becomes a Level 1 Row and it adopts that row level’s style. It’s hard to visualize this right now, because we’ve cleared out all of the template styles from the example document, but you’ll see how this works later on.

Creating Content Groups

Sometimes when you’re working on an OmniOutliner document, you’ll find a bunch of rows that you’d like to group together. These rows can follow one another or be non-contiguous, but all you know is that they belong together. For this, you’ll want to group the rows together using Organize ▸ Group (or Option-Command-G).

To show you how this works, go ahead and click at the end of the last row in the document, after Level 2 Row. You’ll see a flashing insertion point (|). Press Return and then press Shift-Tab to outdent the next line to create a new Level 1 Row.

Enter the following:

• Red and press Return
• Green and press Return
• Blue

Your document should look like this:

To create a group from these rows, do the following:

1. Select the Red, Green, and Blue rows by Command-clicking in their gutters.

   

2. Choose Organize ▸ Group (or Option-Command-G). This indents the Red, Green, and Blue rows (converting them to Level 2 Rows), and inserts a new Level 1 Row above them.

   

3. In the empty Level 1 Row, enter Additive Primary Colors. This gives a “title” for the parent row of the newly created child rows.

   

There is also an Ungroup option in the Organize menu which can only be used on rows with children for when you want to dismantle the organization. Click in the gutter next to Additive Primary Colors and choose Organize ▸ Ungroup (or Option-Command-U). You’ll see that the Additive Primary Colors row maintains its Level 1 Row status, and that the Red, Green, and Blue rows are outdented Level 1 Rows, too.

However, since we want that Additive Primary Colors list for a later part of the tutorial, go ahead and press Command-Z to undo the ungrouping. You’ll see that the Additive Primary Colors row now has a closed disclosure triangle as its row handle and that the Red, Green, and Blue lines have disappeared. Don’t worry, though. If you click the disclosure triangle, the row pops open to reveal its child rows.

Choose File ▸ Save to save the changes you’ve made to the document.

Styling Your Content

Up to now, you’ve learned all kinds of things about OmniOutliner. You’ve created a new document based on a template, and have then stripped out all of the template styles before learning how to enter and create hierarchical lists of information, including moving and grouping content.

Now it’s time to take things to the next level by showing you how to create styles for your content. There’s a lot that’s involved here, but before this goes too far, it’s important to understand OmniOutliner’s style layering model.

Understanding OmniOutliner’s Style Model

As mentioned earlier, when showing you how to use the Style Attributes inspector, OmniOutliner’s styles stack upon one another. The base layer of styles for your document is the Whole Document style. This is the foundation of your document, and the various Level styles you set can adopt, amend, and even override the Whole Document styles.

There are two kinds of styles in OmniOutliner: Level Styles and Named Styles:

• Level Styles reside in the top portion of the Styles pane of the sidebar, and consist of the Whole Document style, styles for the various numbered Level Rows (Level 1 Row, Level 2 Row, and so on), as well as styles for Column Titles, Notes, and the main Topic column.

• Named Styles are found in the lower portion of the Styles pane in the sidebar, and can be applied to anything in your document. When applied, a Named Style amends the existing Level Style with its own properties. For example, you could apply a Heading named style on top of a Level 1 Row style to make the text bigger or change the font. All of the templates come with some pre-defined Named styles, which you can use, delete, or edit to suit the needs of your document.

The styles you set for the various Level Rows, headings, and text all stack on top of the styles you designate for the Whole Document. This is very much like the web’s Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), if you’ve ever used that for web design.

Using the Colors Palette

One thing you may not have noticed is that OmniOutliner’s sidebar (Option-Command–1) is also layered on top of your content. If you change the background color of your OmniOutliner document to something other than white, you’ll notice that the sidebar takes on a slight tint of that color. That’s because the sidebar’s default color uses opacity to let the underlying background color bleed through.

To see how this works, click in the white space beneath the content of the outline, and then do the following:

1. Open the Inspectors window by clicking the button in the toolbar, or with the Shift-Command-I keyboard shortcut.

2. Make sure you’re in the Style inspector by clicking the left-most icon in the Inspector window’s toolbar. Your Inspector window should look like this:

   

3. Click on the half-black, half-white color bar next to Background (don’t click on the little arrows on the right edge). This opens the Colors palette.

   

4. The big disc of color is known as the Color Wheel. To change the color, click within the Color Wheel and drag the Color Picker around.

   

   Beneath the Color Wheel you’ll see two sliders. Use the top slider to set the Brightness of the color you’ve selected in the wheel. If you drag the slider all the way to the left, the color is lighter; drag it all the way to the right, and the color you’ll get is black. The bottom slider lets you specify the Opacity (or see-through-ness) of the color, where 0% is totally transparent and 100% is opaque.

5. Drag the Brightness slider all the way to the left, and then drag the Opacity slider all the way to the right so that the Opacity is set to 100%.

6. Click anywhere within the Color Wheel and hold down the mouse button. Now drag the mouse pointer around within the Color Wheel until you find a color you like. Notice how the outline’s background color changes as you move the mouse around, and how the sidebar also takes on a slight tint of those colors as well.

   

If you haven’t used the Colors palette much in the past, there are some additional things you should know about. For example, you can switch from the Color Wheel to other color-choosing options by clicking the icons along the top of the Colors palette.

To the left of the Color Swatches, you’ll see an eyedropper next to a rounded square that contains the color you’ve selected in the Wheel. This is the Color Inspector. If you find a color you like and would like to save, click and drag the color to one of the empty Color Swatches along the bottom of the window.

Don’t fret if you run out of color chits at the bottom of the Colors palette. If you click and drag on the little dot handle at the bottom of the window, you can expand the chit collector to reveal more rows. You can drop colors in randomly, and later reorganize them into color groups, if you’d like.

To close the Colors palette, move your mouse over the three window control buttons at the upper-left of the palette and click the red Close Window button at the far left.

Back in OmniOutliner, open the Style Attributes inspector. You’ll notice that the Whole Document style now has a background color property which reflects the color you’ve chosen.

There’s much more to show you about the Colors palette, including how to use the Opacity slider for creating varying shades of the same color. For now, though, click the to the right of the Whole Document bar in the Style Attributes inspector to remove the background color you’ve set.

Setting the Whole Document Styles

Now it’s time to get to work on building out the styles for what will evolve into a new template you can use in OmniOutliner. Before you get started, take some time to think about how you would like your template to look:

• What colors should it have?
• What fonts and font styles are needed?
• Does it need status checkboxes?
• What about columns and layout?

All of these—and more—can factor into how you design and create the template. As noted earlier, however, the Whole Document styles set the foundation for the rest of your template, so that’s where we’ll start.

1. In the Styles pane of the sidebar, select Whole Document.

   

2. Choose Window ▸ Inspectors ▸ Style to open the Style inspector.

   

3. To set a base font for the document, click the font family pop up at the top of the Style inspector, and choose Modern ▸ Helvetica Neue.

   

4. In the Font Size selector, choose 13 as the font size (in points).

5. Click the Align Left button.

6. Click on the half-black, half-white portion of the Background color chooser to open the Colors palette.

7. In the Colors palette, slide the Brightness slider to the left and slide the Opacity slider over to the right. If you’d like to follow along, choose a light pink background color, or select your favorite color and go with that. If it turns out that the background color you’ve chosen is too bright, you can always dial down the Opacity to lighten its intensity.

   

   The outline now has a light pink background, and its default font type and size is 13 point Helvetica Neue. You can verify that these styles have been applied to the Whole Document style by switching over to the Style Attributes inspector.

   

Setting the Column Titles Styles

Now let’s create a title banner across the top of the document.

1. Go ahead and switch back to the Style inspector and then select Column Titles in the Styles pane of the sidebar.

   

2. In the Style inspector, do the following:

   • In the Font Family bar at the top, click the A icon to open the Fonts window. In the Typeface column, choose UltraLight, and then change the Size to 48.

   

   • Change the font color to a light blue or Aqua tone. You can do this easily by clicking on the Color Picker and dragging it over to the edge of the blue area in the Color Wheel.

   • Change the text alignment to Centered.

   • Change the Background color to a dark (almost black) purple. This helps the light blue text really stand out at the top of the document.

Your document should look similar to the following:

And you can verify the styles in the Style Attributes inspector, too.

Setting the Row Level Styles

Now it’s time to turn our attention to the row levels. As you might recall from earlier in this tutorial, the Level Styles template used variations on the same font for the different row styles. We’ll do something similar here, but we’ll also add a background color to a couple of the rows so you can see how to layer colors on top of the background color specified in the Whole Document style.

Let’s get started!

1. In the Styles pane of the sidebar, select Level 1 Rows.

   

2. In the Style inspector, do the following:

   • Open the Fonts window and change the Typeface to UltraLight.
   • Change the font size to 24 points.
   • Change the Background color to White, but set the Opacity in the Colors palette to 50%. This creates a transparent background that lets the light blue background color from the Whole Document style bleed through.

   Your document should look similar to the following:

   

   And for reference, the Colors palette, and the Style and Style Attributes inspectors should look like this:

   

3. In the Styles pane of the sidebar, select Level 2 Rows.

   

4. In the Style inspector, do the following:

   • Open the Fonts window and change the Typeface to Medium.
   • Change the font size to 14 points.
   • Change the Background color to White, but set the Opacity in the colors palette to 30%. This gives the Level 2 Rows a slightly darker background color than the Level 1 Rows.

   Your document should look similar to the following:

   

   And for reference, the Colors palette, and the Style and Style Attributes inspectors should look like this:

   

5. In the Styles pane of the sidebar, select Level 3 Rows.

   

6. In the Style inspector, do the following:

   • Change the Background color to Light Gray by clicking on the little arrows on the right side. This background color automatically has a 20% opacity set to it, which makes the row slightly darker than the Level 2 Rows.

   Your document should look similar to the following:

   

   And for reference, the Colors palette, and the Style and Style Attributes inspectors should look like this:

   

7. In the Styles pane of the sidebar, select Notes.

   

8. In the Styles inspector, do the following:

   • Open the Fonts window and change the Typeface to Medium.
   • Change the font size to 11 points.
   • Change the font color to Dark Gray. You can do this easily by clicking on the little arrows to the right of the color bar and selecting Dark Gray from the available options.

   Your document should look similar to the following:

   

   And for reference, the Colors, Style, and Style Attributes inspectors should look like this:

   

Creating New Named Styles

Finally, let’s create some new Named Styles that we can use on the Red, Green, and Blue text under the Additive Primary Colors row.

Start by deleting the Named Styles that came with the Modern with Level Styles template; follow these steps:

1. In the Styles pane of the sidebar, click to select the Heading 1 style, hold down the Shift key, and then click to select the Graphite style at the bottom of the pane; this selects those styles and everything in between.

   

2. Click the Action menu to the right and underneath the Named Styles, and choose Delete Style from the popup menu.

   

3. Click the Action menu again and choose New Named Style from the popup menu.

   

   This creates a new named style in the lower portion of the Styles pane, which you can assign a name to. Let’s keep this simple; type in Red and press Return to avoid ambiguity.

   

4. Select the Red named style in the Styles pane.

   

5. In the Style inspector, do the following:

   • Open the Fonts window and change the Family to Helvetica Neue, the Typeface to Regular, and set the Size to 14 points.

     

   • Click on the little arrows next to the color selector and choose Red.

     

When finished, the Style inspector should look like this:

And you’ll see that the Red named style in the Styles pane has a red “A” in its style icon.

To put this new named style to the test, double-click to select the word Red, and then click the checkbox next to the Red named style to apply it to the text.

Repeat Steps 1–5 and create new named styles for Green and Blue. With the Blue style, you’ll have to get a little creative (use the Color Wheel) so you can find a shade of blue that stands out against the background colors. When you’re finished, the Additive Primary Colors section should be similar to this:

You can also create named styles that you can apply, such as a transparent highlight color or a strikethrough for editing purposes, to the contents of the outlines. Take some time to explore what’s possible with named styles.

Creating Named Styles from the Level Styles

Every now and then, you might find the need to apply one of the Level styles (found in the upper portion of the Styles pane) to a lower-level row. The trick to making this work without changing a row’s indentation level is to make duplicates of the Level styles so they also appear as named styles. Let’s do that.

1. Click on the Level 1 Rows style in the Styles pane, hold down the Shift key, and then click on the Level 3 Rows style. As you can see, this also selects the Level 2 Rows style.

   

2. Click the Action menu at the bottom of the sidebar and choose Duplicate Style from the popup menu.

   

   This copies the three styles you’ve selected and places them at the bottom of the named styles list.

   

3. As you can see, the names of the styles are truncated because “Copy of” has been added to the beginning of each style. Let’s fix that. For each of these styles:

   • Select the style name and press Return to highlight and make the style name editable.
   • Delete the words “Copy of” and “Rows” from each style.

   What remains are three named styles—Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3—which carry the same style properties as their corresponding levels.

   

You can either leave the Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 named styles at the bottom of the list, or you can drag them up to another location in the named styles section.

Creating and Using the My Level Styles Template

Up to now, you’ve done a lot of work on this one OmniOutliner document, and it’d be a shame to have to redo all of that design work again. When you find a design that you really really like, you can save the OmniOutliner file as a template and then later create new documents with that template, or apply its styles as a “theme” to an existing document.

Here’s what you need to do to create the template:

1. Before creating the template, choose File ▸ Save (Command-S) to save all of the changes you’ve made to the My Level Styles file.

2. Choose File ▸ Save As Template. A sheet slides down from under the toolbar, giving you the option to change the filename or change the location to where the file will be saved. Go ahead and ignore these and just click Save.

   

   When you save the template, OmniOutliner places a .oo3template file extension onto the file.

3. Close the OmniOutliner window by choosing Window ▸ Close Window, or with the standard Command-W keyboard shortcut.

To use the template as the basis for a new document, choose File ▸ New or File ▸ Resource Browser, and look for your template under Templates ▸ Miscellaneous. Select the My Level Styles template and click New Outline.

If you ever need to make changes to a template, you can select it in the Resource Browser, and then choose Edit from the Action menu (the gear icon) at the bottom of the window.

You’ll know you’re editing a template file if you look at the top of the window and see [TEMPLATE] next to the filename.

Applying a Template as a Theme

As you might have noticed, when you create a new file using one of the templates, the new Untitled file also includes the contents of the original template file. Not just the styles, but all of the text on the rows and columns, if applicable. However, there is a way for you to apply the styles from a template—its theme—to another document you’re working on.

1. Start by opening the Resource Browser (File ▸ Resource Browser).

2. Select Level Styles in the browser’s sidebar, and then double-click the Modern with Level Styles template to open it. Look familiar?

   

3. Choose Format ▸ Apply Template Theme; this opens a Resource Browser-like sheet from which you can select a template to apply.

4. In the sheet’s sidebar, choose Miscellaneous and then select the My Level Styles template.

   

5. Click Apply.

The document takes on all of the characteristics of the My Level Styles template you created without overwriting all of the content on the rows.

Keep this in mind when you’re working on a document and looking for creative ways to style the content. If you don’t like the way a particular theme looks, you can use Command-Z to undo the theme and revert back to the previous styling.

Where to Go From Here

This tutorial took you through the process of stripping one of OmniOutliner 4’s templates down to the bare metal and then building up a new template from scratch. Along the way, we showed you how to create hierarchical lists of information on different rows, how to move and organize your content, and also how to create groups.

Take some time now to explore everything that OmniOutliner has to offer. If you downloaded a timed trial of OmniOutliner from our website, all of the OmniOutliner 4 Pro features are available to you, so why not put those to the test? Try creating styles that make use of Pro-only features, including:

• Add space above Notes and Children
• Add space below Children
• Force a page break before a particular item when printing
• Decide whether child rows are indented

You can also add multiple columns to an outline and use them for laying out content. Be sure to use the Horizontal and Vertical grid lines (found in the Outline inspector) to apply grid lines to your outline to assist in laying things out.

Printing from OmniOutliner

Whether you’ve finished working on your OmniOutliner document, or if you’re in the process of checking styles and formatting prior to submitting an outline, one of the things you’ll eventually want to do is print your outline. When it comes to printing, OmniOutliner has a few tricks up its sleeve that can make the printed form even more amazing.

To print, choose File ▸ Print or use the standard keyboard shortcut, Command-P. This opens the standard Mac print dialog box, but as mentioned, we’ve added a few OmniOutliner-specific things to the print panel.

On the left side of the printing panel, you’ll see an exact replica of your OmniOutliner document, showing you how it will look when printed. You can use the arrow buttons beneath the preview to page through your document so you can verify that everything is in order. By default, the Scale document to fit page width and Include Notes options are checked.

Just above those two options, you’ll see a popup menu that says OmniOutliner on it. If you click that, you’ll see a whole bunch of other printing options, but the ones we want to focus on are Headers & Footers, Margins, and Page Attributes.

The Headers & Footers print settings gives you the ability to add details about your OmniOutliner document to the top and bottom of the printed page. The six boxes (three each for Headers and Footers) represent the left, center, and right positions on the page. Use the popup just above the Headers section to apply the headers and footers to the Master Page, First Page, Odd Pages, or Even Pages. Use the Insert popup just below the right-most box to insert one or more of the following:

• Page Number
• Section Title
• Last Modification Time
• Page Count
• Document Title
• Document Name
• Print Time

Just click inside one of the six boxes and choose the option from the Insert menu. For example, the following image inserts the Document Title and Print Time in the center and right boxes of the Header, respectively. For the Footer, the center box uses a combination of Page Number and Page Count (with the word “of” added in between), which would print as 1 of 10 or 2 of 10, and is particularly useful for long documents.

Use the Margins print options to control how the contents of your document appears within the bounds of a printed page. The Top and Bottom controls let you set the distance from the edge of the page to any Headers or Footers you’ve applied, and from the Headers and Footers to the actual content. To adjust any of the margin values, you can either click in the box and enter something different, or use the little arrows off to the right to increase or decrease the value.

Finally, use the Page Attributes print options to choose a Paper Size and set the Orientation to either portrait or landscape. If you have a document with a lot of columns, switch the Orientation to landscape so everything will fit on the page.

Preferences

Now that you’ve had a chance to get cozy with OmniOutliner 4’s interface, let’s take some time to examine the app’s preferences. To open OmniOutliner’s preference pane, choose OmniOutliner ▸ Preferences, or use the ultra-handy keyboard shortcut, Command-Comma (⌘-,). There are six preference panes that you can use to further customize OmniOutliner 4 to suit your needs, and your work style.

Each preference pane includes a Reset () and Help () button so you can revert back to the default settings, or get to this Help page quickly from within the app.

General Preferences

Use the General preferences pane to make changes that apply across the board for everything you do in OmniOutliner.

Options in General preferences include:

New Documents

Choose what happens when you create a new document, by either choosing File ▸ New or using the Command-N keyboard shortcut. You can choose between opening the new Resource Browser, or creating a new document based on the default template. If you want to change the default template, click Choose and then select one of the OmniOutliner template files on your Mac.

Links

Turn on or off the ability to make hyperlink (a URL such as http://www.omnigroup.com) clickable. If you uncheck this option, the URLs you enter are rendered as Rich Text and clicking them will not open the URL in your default web browser.

If you want to change the text label of a URL, right-click (or Control-click) on the link and choose Edit Link from the contextual menu that appears. Change the Display title to whatever you would like, and then click Done.

Styles

Turn on or off the setting for a new row to adopt the style from that row’s sibling. When this is checked and you add a new row (by pressing Return or Shift-Return), that new row adopts the styles of the row you were previously in. When unchecked, any new styles you create revert to the default styles from the template you’ve chosen.

For example, let’s assume that you have a new document that uses the Blank template and you’ve unchecked this option. In your first row, you click the row handle and assign an orange background to the row. You then enter some text and press Return. The next row doesn’t pick up the orange background color; instead, it has a white background (which is the default for the Blank template). Now, if the Styles option were checked, the next row you created from the orange row would pick up the same orange background color.

Keyboard Preferences

Use the Keyboard Preferences to adjust how OmniOutliner reacts when you press certain keys.

These options are as follows:

When pressing Tab

By default, pressing Tab indents a row. You can change this to Go to next cell by switching the radio buttons. Holding the Option key inserts an actual Tab character, while pressing Shift-Tab outdents the current row.

When pressing Return

By default, pressing Return creates a new empty row. You can change this to Insert a new line in the current row by switching the radio buttons; however, pressing Option-Return always inserts a new line in the current row.

Similarly, with Split the current row at the insertion point set, you can split the current row into two rows at the cursors position by pressing Return. Even when this option is turned off, you can press Control-Return to split a row in two.

New rows are created

By default, new rows are Indented if there are children when you press Return. If you switch the radio button to Always at the same level, new rows are created at the same level as the line your cursor is on when you press Return.

When pressing Escape

There are two options for what happens when you press the Escape key. By default, pressing the Escape key opens the system-wide completion menu. This comes in particularly handy when you aren’t quite sure how to spell something. You can just type in the first few characters of the word, press Escape, and a popup menu appears with a list of possible options. To accept one of the options, you can click it with your mouse, or use the Down Arrow key to move the highlight to the word you need and then either press Tab or Return to accept that option.

Use the other option, Begin or end text editing, for times when you’re doing quick entry and need to move around in your Outline, editing rows and column cells more efficiently. Pressing Escape after entering some text in a row will highlight that row. Press Escape again places the cursor at the end of the line so you can continue typing.

Apply named styles with

By default, you can use one of the Function keys to apply one of the Named styles to the current row. (Named styles are found in the lower portion of the Styles section of the Sidebar.) To use the function keys (F1 through F9), you’ll need to press and hold the fn key and then press a numbered function key to apply the style. For example, to apply the Heading 1 named style, use fn-F1.

You can change this to Control + number by switching the radio buttons in the preference pane. This can make it easier for you to apply named styles since using the fn key along with the various function keys can be a little awkward.

Rearrange the Named Styles for Different Keyboard Shortcuts

As you may have noticed, not all of the Named styles in the Sidebar have a keyboard shortcut equivalent. Additionally, you cannot directly assign (or reassign) these keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences ▸ Keyboard ▸ Shortcuts since these aren’t tied to a menu item.

However, you can rearrange the Named styles by dragging and dropping them into different positions in the list. For example, if you find that you’re using the Orange text style very often, you can drag that up in the list and drop it into a position where it will have a keyboard shortcut.

Text Import & Export Preferences

OmniOutliner also offers the ability to import or export raw text files. To assist with this, the Text Import and Export Preferences lets you view (or change) the characters used to represent elements in an OmniOutliner document.

The document elements you have control over include Bullets, Checkboxes, and Spacing, and there’s also a popup menu that lets you select the text encoding type for importing and exporting operations.

RTF Export Preferences

Similar to the Text Import and Export Preferences, OmniOutliner can also export documents to Rich Text Format (RTF). As such, we’ve preset some characters and sizes based on the object types for Bullets and Checkboxes, and have set Spacing for indents and the distance between columns.

You can use the defaults, or change these up however you see fit, and based on your own document needs.

Audio Recording Preferences

Use the Audio Recording preferences to see which microphone you’re using for recording, change the compression level, or to access the temporary recording folder.

As you record audio, OmniOutliner creates a temporary file in which to dump the audio bits you’re recording. When you’ve finished recording, that temporary file goes away and moves into your OmniOutliner document. However, if OmniOutliner quits unexpectedly while you are recording, all hope is not lost. The temporary recording is still there, and the easiest way to get to it is from this Audio Recording preference panel. Just click the Open Folder button, and you’ll be whisked away to a new Finder window that’s open to the where the temporary file is stored. You can then drag that into OmniOutliner, or dump it in the trash if you want to start over from scratch.

Automatic Software Update Preferences

There’s nothing worse than out-of-date software, and one way to ensure that you’re always using the latest and greatest version of OmniOutliner is with the Automatic Software Update Preferences.

You can choose to check for updates either Daily (the default), Weekly, or Monthly, or if you’re really impatient you can click Check for Updates Now.

There is also a checkbox to Send anonymous system information to The Omni Group when you check for an update. This is totally optional, so feel free to uncheck that box to turn this off. However, if you do choose to send information about your system (no personal information is ever sent), we promise to never ever share that information with anyone. The Omni Group only uses this information so we know which hardware and operating system types we need to target for future software updates.

Sharing OmniOutliner Files with Other Apps

As we’ve mentioned, OmniOutliner is the bees knees when it comes to working with text. And for all of your text-hungry needs, we’ve made it easy for you to import text files and export in a variety of formats.

Exporting from OmniOutliner

You’ve finished working on your masterpiece, and now it’s time to share your OmniOutliner file with everyone else around you. For those times when you need to send an OmniOutliner file to someone who doesn’t have OmniOutliner (you have told them how awesome OmniOutliner is, right?), we’ve included a bunch of export file formats that you can choose from. To export an open file, choose File ▸ Export (Option-Command-E), and then choose one of the following options from the File Format pop-up menu:

HTML

Creates a like-named folder that contains an index.html file along with the necessary images and attachments that make up your OmniOutliner file. All of the styles you’ve used in OmniOutliner are converted to CSS and included in the index.html file.

HTML (Dynamic)

This option gives you everything that comes with the basic HTML export, plus an added outliner.js file. This JavaScript file is what makes the file dynamic, in that you can open and close the sections of your document just as you would in OmniOutliner.

OmniOutliner 3

Exports a .oo3 file which can be opened in either OmniOutliner 3 or 4 for Mac, and in OmniOutliner 1 and 2 for iPad. These files are not compatible with OmniOutliner 2 for Mac and earlier.

OmniOutliner 3 Template

Exports a .oo3template file which can be opened in either OmniOutliner 3 or 4. These files are not compatible with OmniOutliner 2 or earlier.

OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language)

Exports a .opml file, which is the industry standard XML format for outlines, and is a great way to share documents with other outlining apps. Only the contents of your OmniOutliner document is exported as OPML; all of the fancy style stuff you’ve applied isn’t included in the OPML file.

Plain Text (fixed width)

Exports a raw .txt file without any styles. Child rows are indented with four spaces, and columns are aligned using spaces. You can adjust the number of spaces used in OmniOutliner ▸ Preferences ▸ Text ▸ Spacing.

Plain Text (with tabs)

Exports a raw .txt file without any styles. Child rows and columns are aligned using tabs rather than spaces, making this type of export useful for importing into spreadsheet apps such as Numbers or Excel.

RTF (Rich Text Format)

Exports a .rtf file, which retains all of the styles you’ve applied in OmniOutliner. RTF is a standard document format that most word processors, such as Word and OS X’s TextEdit app can open. Export to RTF if your Outliner document contains only text and numbers.

RTFD (Rich Text Format with Attachments)

Exports a .rtfd file, which retains all of the styles you’ve applied in OmniOutliner. What sets RTFD apart from RTF is that an RTFD file can contain attachments, such as any images, audio clips, or anything else you attach to your OmniOutliner file. Most word processors, such as Word, Pages, and OS X’s TextEdit can open .rtfd files.

Importing to OmniOutliner

For those times when OmniOutliner isn’t handy, or for when you receive an OmniOutliner-compatible file from a coworker, it’s nice to know which filetypes you can open in OmniOutliner. To import a file, just use File ▸ Open and then select one of the following file types in the Open dialog:

• .opml—A valid OPML file.
• .oo3—Files created with OmniOutliner 3 or 4.
• .oo3template—Template files created with OmniOutliner 3 or 4.
• .txt—Plain text and tab-delimited files.
• .rtf—All text styles and colors are preserved when importing an RTF file.
• .rtfd—As with RTF files, all text styles and colors are preserved, and any images are also brought along for the ride. Images are automatically scaled to the column width.

Sharing OmniOutliner Files with OmniGraffle

Additionally, you can share OmniOutliner files with OmniGraffle and create awesomely beautiful things from what on the outset might just look like finely-styled text. Now you can take those texty things and make them look even more awesome in OmniGraffle.

1. Open OmniGraffle and choose File ▸ Open.
2. In the Open dialog, choose any file whose extension is .oo3.
3. Click Open.
4. OmniGraffle presents you with the Import Outline dialog. At the top, be sure to select one of the themed templates, such as Circles or Lines, and then in the Outline Columns combo box, choose how you want column data to be styled (if your OmniOutliner has column data).

You can use OmniGraffle’s powerful Outline Editor (in OmniGraffle, choose View ▸ Show Contents ▸ Outline Editor) to add depth to the diagram you’ve created. When you’re finished, go ahead and export the OmniGraffle file as an OmniOutliner file and then open that up in OmniOutliner 4. The styles you’ve used in OmniGraffle should carry over to OmniOutliner. If you want to change those back to something else, choose Format ▸ Apply Template Theme and then select a template whose styles you’d like applied to the OmniOutliner file.

Menu Commands and Keyboard Shortcuts

Here it is, an exhaustive list of every single menu item, along with any corresponding keyboard shortcut, available in OmniOutliner 4. This section doesn’t just provide a once-over of the available commands, you’ll also find hidden gems—tips—to help you select the right menu option (or combination thereof) so you can unlock your OmniOutliner Power User badge and be the envy of all your friends and coworkers.

If you find a menu option that doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut but you really-really want one, you can always define new ones in System Preferences. For details on how to do this, don’t miss the sidebar in Getting to Know OmniOutliner 4.

The OmniOutliner Menu

The OmniOutliner menu, otherwise known as the app menu, contains commands specific to OmniOutliner itself, such as the About box, access to Preferences, license info, and more.

About OmniOutliner

This opens the About box so you can learn more about OmniOutliner, including the current version and build number (in case you need that for technical support). And speaking of technical support, we’ve also included handy email links so you can inquire about Sales info or to contact our Support Humans with any questions you may have about using OmniOutliner (or any of our other products for that matter). And if you’d rather speak to one of our Support Humans, just dial the phone number we’ve included; we’re here Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time.

Check for Updates

If your Mac is connected to the Internet, selecting this option will connect with our servers to see if an updated version is available for OmniOutliner. If one is available, you’ll be asked first if you want to update, and if so, the new build will download and install on your Mac.

Preferences (Command–,)

This opens the Preferences window so you can further configure OmniOutliner to suit your needs and your work style.

Licenses

This opens the Licenses window, in which you can enter or delete a license, or if you are using an evaluation copy of OmniOutliner, you can click Buy Licenses to be taken to our online store where you can purchase a license key.

Services

Here you’ll find a list of applications that OmniOutliner can share information with. Just select something in OmniOutliner, and then choose this menu option to see which apps you can send stuff.

Hide OmniOutliner (Command–H)

Hides OmniOutliner’s window, suppressing it to the land of hidden apps. To bring OmniOutliner back into view, either click the app icon in the Dock, or use Command–Tab to use OS X’s application switcher to switch back to OmniOutliner.

Hide Others (Option-Command–H)

Banish the windows of other open apps to the land of hidden apps. As with Hide OmniOutliner, to bring a hidden app back into view, either click that app’s icon in the Dock, or use Command–Tab to use OS X’s application switcher to switch back to the app you need.

Show All

Choose this menu option to quickly bring all of the hidden app windows out of hiding.

Quit OmniOutliner (Command–Q)

This does what it says; it quits OmniOutliner. If you haven’t saved the file before, you’ll be prompted to save the file (giving it a name and specifying a location to save the file to). If you are working in a file that you’ve previously saved, you don’t have to worry about saving before you quit, thanks to OS X’s Auto Save feature. But, if you’re really paranoid, you can use Command–S to save the file before using Command–Q.

The File Menu

Options for creating, opening, renaming, exporting, and printing documents and templates:

New (Command–N)

Create a new document using the default template.

Resource Browser (Shift-Command–N)

Opens the Resource Browser.

Open (Command–O)

Open an existing file.

Open Recent

OmniOutliner keeps track of recently opened files and includes the filenames in this menu so you can reopen a file and continue your work.

Close (Command–W)

Close the current window; use Option-Command–W to close all open OmniOutliner windows. You will be prompted to name and new, Untitled, document files before the window is closed.

Save (Command–S)

Save the contents of the current document.

Duplicate (Shift-Command–S)

Create a duplicate copy of the current document. The exact contents of the current window are copied into a new document window, which has the filename in the titlebar highlighted so you can enter a different name for the file. The file will be saved in the same location as its parent.

Rename

Choose this option to highlight the filename in the document’s titlebar so you can enter a new name for the file.

Move To

Choose this option to open a sheet and select another location on your Mac’s hard drive to store the file.

Export (Option-Command–E)

Export your OmniOutliner document to one of the following formats mentioned in Exporting From OmniOutliner.

Save As Template

Saves the current file as an OmniOutliner template file. Template files are stored on your Mac in ~/Library/Containers/com.omnigroup.OmniOutliner/
Data/Library/Application Support/The Omni Group/OmniOutliner/Templates.

Revert To

Opens Time Machine so you can sift through earlier saves of the current document and restore it from an older save.

Print Setup (Shift-Command–P)

This opens the Print Setup dialog, so you can apply any previously saved Settings, choose which printer to format the document for, select a paper size, orientation, and scale for the document.

Print (Command–P)

Sends the current document to your default printer. You can use Print Setup (Shift-Command–P) to choose a printer other than your default printer; for example, if you have a document that needs to print in Tabloid-Landscape on a color printer.

The Edit Menu

Options for editing your content:

Undo (Command–Z)

Undoes the previous change you’ve made. OmniOutliner supports unlimited Undo, so go ahead and press Command–Z a few dozen times and watch all of your hard work disappear.

Redo (Shift-Command–Z)

Just like Undo, Redo puts back something that you’ve undone but have decided that you really want to be there. For example, let’s say that you were testing out the strength of pressing Command–Z repetitively, but then you want to put all of that back. Yep, that’s right; you can just hit Shift-Command–Z to put everything back in place.

Cut (Command–X)

Deletes whatever you’ve selected and places that on the Clipboard so you can paste it back later, or just ignore it.

Copy (Command–C)

Copies whatever you’ve selected and places that on the Clipboard so you can paste it somewhere else, or in another document, later.

Paste (Command–V)

Pastes in whatever is on the Clipboard.

Paste’s behavior is slightly different in OmniOutliner than what you find in some other apps. If you cut or copy text that has line breaks from another app and paste that into OmniOutliner, all of the text appears on a single row, but with those line breaks intact.

However, if you wanted each line to appear on its own row in OmniOutliner, first select a row by clicking in the gutter, and then use Edit ▸ Paste (or Command–V) to paste in the text.

Paste and Match Style (Option-Shift-Command–V)

Unlike Paste, this option pastes in whatever is on the Clipboard, but applies any predetermined style for that row or column in your OmniOutliner to the pasted material.

Duplicate Selection (Command–D)

Copy and paste the current selection into the current document automatically.

Delete

Deletes the current selection. Unlike Cut, however, Delete just wipes out whatever you’ve selected without placing it on the Clipboard.

Select All (Command–A)

Select every single thing in your OmniOutliner document.

Deselect All (Shift-Command–A)

Unselect every single thing in your OmniOutliner document. This is sometimes handy for when you’re not sure if something is selected and you’re about to paste something in.

Set Status

Use one of the following to set the status of a row’s checkbox:

• Checked
• Unchecked
• Calculated
• None

Edit Note (Command–’)

Edit the Note for the currently selected row or column cell.

Attach File

Attach a file to the document.

Start/Stop Audio Recording

Add an audio clip to your document.

Insert Time Stamp

Inserts one of the following time stamps on the current row:

Short Date (Command–/)

Inserts a localized numerical date string; for example: 10/05/2013.

Long Date (Option-Command–/)

Inserts a localized numerical date string; for example: October 5, 2013.

Time (Command–@)

Inserts a localized numerical time string; for example: 12:34:56 PM.

Short Date and Time (Command–|)

Inserts a localized numerical date and time string; for example: 10/05/2013 12:34 PM.

Long Date and Time (Option-Command–|)

Inserts a localized numerical date and time string; for example: October 5, 2013 12:34:56 PM PDT.

Find

Use one of the following search options:

Show/Hide Search (Option-Command–F)

Displays the search field in the Sidebar. When the search field is displayed, a Hide button appears to its left. Click the Hide button, or use the Hide Search menu option (or the same keyboard shortcut) to make the search field go away.

Find (Command–F)

This opens the Find dialog, in which you can enter something to search for. You can search for a text string, such as The Omni Group, or you can use a regular expression, such as Omni\s, to search for the word Omni followed by a space (\s).

Find Next (Command–G)

Find the next instance.

Find Previous (Shift-Command–G)

Find the previous instance.

Use Selection for Find (Command–E)

Uses the current selection as the search criteria when using Find. You can use this option before or after opening the Find dialog (Command–F).

Spelling

Choose one of the following options for checking the spelling and grammar in your document:

Show/Hide Spelling and Grammar (Command–:)

Opens the Spelling and Grammar window so you can check for any spelling or gramatical mistakes in the current document.

Check Spelling (Command–;)

Just checks the spelling in the current document. Who cares about grammar, anyway?

Check Spelling While Typing

Turned on by default, this option checks your spelling as you type. Any words you misspell get a red squiggle underneath and OS X offers up similar words from which you can select the correct spelling.

Speech

You can have OS X read aloud the text in the current row or note using the system voice you’ve set up in the Dictation & Speech preferences (System Preferences ▸ Dictation & Speech ▸ Text to Speech).

Start Speaking

Start speaking the text in the current row.

Stop Speaking

Stop speaking.

LinkBack

LinkBack is a way of embedding content between applications in such a way that you can always go back and edit the content with the software used to create it originally.

Edit LinkBack Item

If you have pasted LinkBack content from another app, select the object and use this command to open the content in the original app.

Remove LinkBack for Item

Selecting this option removes the LinkBack feature from the selected content so that this content can only be edited within OmniOutliner.

How LinkBack Works

LinkBack lets you embed content between applications in such a way that you can always go back and edit the content with the software used to create it originally.

For example, let’s say that you’ve used LinkBack to include some information from OmniGraffle in one of your OmniOutliner documents. To edit the OmniGraffle content that’s linked to from your OmniOutliner document:

• Double-click the OmniGraffle content in your OmniOutliner document. This opens an OmniGraffle window containing that content.
• Edit the content in the OmniGraffle window, just as you normally would.
• In OmniGraffle, choose File ▸ Save; the content in the OmniOutliner window updates automatically.

This makes it easy for you to roundtrip content shared by LinkBack apps without having to update the content in two different places. For more information about LinkBack, and a list of participating applications, check the LinkBack repository on GitHub.

Start Dictation (fn fn)

When dictation is turned on, OmniOutliner uses OS X’s speech recognition capabilities to convert the words you speak into text. When you’ve finished, just press fn fn again to stop dictation.

Special Characters (Control-Command–Space)

This opens the Characters window, which gives you access to a broader set of characters, including arrows, symbols, and even Emoji.

The Format Menu

Options for formatting the contents of your document, including font and text styles, row numbering, and more:

Copy Style (Option-Command–C)

Copies the style of the current selection and places that on the Clipboard.

Paste Style (Option-Command–V)

Pastes the previously copied style onto the current selection.

Clear Style (Control-Command–Delete)

Removes any styles that have been applied to an item and reverts the selection to the default style.

Font

Change the typeface and style of your text:

Show Fonts (Command–T)

This opens the Fonts window, from which you can choose another font, its typeface, and size.

Bold (Command–B)

Turns on or applies bold to the current selection.

Italic (Command–I)

Turns on or applies italics to the current selection.

Underline (Command–U)

Turns on or applies an underline to the current selection.

Outline

Turns on or applies an outline to the current selection.

Bigger (Command–+)

Increase the size of the current row or selected text.

Smaller (Command–−)

Decreases the size of the current row or selected text.

Kern

Use these options to change the spacing between characters:

• Use Default
• Use None
• Tighten
• Loosen

Ligature

Use these options to control ligatures in your document:

• Use Default
• Use None
• Use All

Baseline

Use these options to adjust the baseline of the current row or selection:

• Use Default
• Superscript
• Subscript
• Raise
• Lower

Show Colors (Shift-Command–C)

Opens the color palette so you can make all of your text chartreuse (if you’d like).

Text

Alignment options for text, images, and attachments:

Align Left

Aligns text and objects to the left margin of the current row or column.

Center

Aligns text and objects based on the midpoint of the current row or column.

Justify

Evenly space the words in a row or column so that multiline text uses the full width of the column.

Align Right

Aligns text and objects to the right margin of the current row or column.

Writing Direction

Change the writing direction:

Right to Left

Change the writing direction from Left to Right to Right to Left.

Row Numbering

Assign a row-numbering scheme to your document. Row numbers are based on their indentation level. Assuming that a row with no indent is the Parent, the first indented row would be a Child, and subsequent indented rows are Grand Children and Great Grand Children, unnumbered rows would have the following hierarchy:

The Row Numbers menu is split into two parts. The upper section of the menu lets you determine a numbered style to use as the prefix for the rows in your document. If you have set a numbered style other than None, the styles in the lower section—x., x), and (x)—can also be applied to the row number; for example 1.1.1., 1.1.1), or (1.1.1), respectively.

Set the formatting for row numbers:

None

When selected, the rows in your document will not be numbered.

1, 2, 3, 4

When selected, the rows in your document are numbered sequentially, starting with 1.

A, B, C, D

When selected, the rows in your document are lettered sequentially using uppercase letters, starting with A.

a, b, c, d

When selected, the rows in your document are lettered sequentially using lowercase letters, starting with a.

I, II, III, IV

When selected, the rows in your document are numbered sequentially using uppercase Roman numerals, starting with I.

i, ii, iii, iv

When selected, the rows in your document are numbered sequentially using lowercase Roman numerals, starting with i.

1, 1.1, 1.1.1

When selected, the rows in your document are numbered sequentially using section numbering, starting with 1 for the parent row, 1.1 for the next level of indented rows, and so on.

No Prefix or Suffix

Selected by default, this option implies that no characters will appear before or after a row number.

x.

This places a period after the chosen row number style; for example, 1.1.2..

x)

This places a closing parenthesis ) after the chosen row number style; for example, 1.1.2).

(x)

This places row numbers in parenthesis; for example, (1.1.2).

Apply Template Theme

Opens a sheet that looks similar to the Resource Browser so you can choose and apply a template theme to the current document.

The View Menu

Options for working within your OmniOutliner document:

Expand All (Control-Command–9)

Expand all of the rows in your document.

Collapse All (Control-Command–0)

Collapse all of the rows in your document.

Expand Row (Command–9)

Expand the current row.

Expand Row Completely (Option-Command–9)

Expands the row and all child rows as well.

Collapse Row (Command–0)

Collapses the current row.

Collapse Row Completely (Option-Command–0)

Collapses the row and all child rows as well.

Focus (Shift-Command–F)

Brings the current row (and its children) into focus by hiding everything else in your OmniOutliner document. This is particularly helpful, for example, when you want to focus on the outline for a chapter of a book or a parts list for an engineering project. You can also assign multiple levels of Focus based on the structure of your document. For example, if you have a row with a few nested children, you could assign focus to the one of the child rows, and again to one of its rows if any were nested.

Unfocus (Option-Shift-Command–F)

Removes the previously assigned Focus.

Unfocus All

Removes the Focus as applied to every object in your OmniOutliner document.

Zoom In (Command–>)

Magnify the view of your document. You can scale your document up to 400 percent.

Zoom Out (Command–<)

Demagnify the view of your document. You can scale your document down to 50 percent.

Zoom to Actual Size

Automatically scales your document back to 100 percent (normal size). This is particularly helpful when you’ve zoomed in to 400 percent and want to quickly return to a normal view.

Column Headers

Choose whether column headers are displayed using one of these options:

Show

Displays all column headings.

Automatic

Turns on column headings if there are two or more columns in your document (the Note column does not count).

Hide

Hides all column headings.

Show/Hide Status Checkboxes

Choose to display or hide the clickable status checkboxes. These are helpful for when you have an outline that pertains to a project (such as the outline for writing OmniOutliner’s documentation) and you want to tick things off as you go.

The Organize Menu

Options for adding, removing, and sorting the contents of your document:

Add Row

Insert a row beneath the current row.

Add Inside (Command–})

Inserts and indents a new row beneath the current row.

Add Outside (Command–{)

Inserts and outdents a new row beneath the current row.

Add Column

Inserts a new column after the currently selected column.

Remove Column

Removes the selected column.

Keep Sorted

Choose one of these options to either reset or maintain the type of sorting you’d like for your document:

Clear Sorting

Removes any previously selected sorting choice. This is useful for when you want to resort a document using another method.

Notes, A-Z

Sorts the contents of the document in alphabetical (A-Z) order based on the Notes for each row.

Notes, Z-A

Sorts the contents of the document in reverse alphabetical (Z-A) order based on the Notes for each row.

Status, Unchecked to Checked

Sorts the contents of the document based the state of the Status Checkboxes, from unchecked to checked.

Status, Checked to Unchecked

Sorts the contents of the document based the state of the Status Checkboxes, from checked to unchecked.

Topic, A-Z

Sorts the contents of the document in alphabetical (A-Z) order based on the Topics used in the document.

Topic, Z-A

Sorts the contents of the document in reverse alphabetical (Z-A) order based on the Topics used in the document.

Sort Outline

Sort the items in your document, once, based on the following options:

Notes, A-Z

Sorts the contents of the document in alphabetical (A-Z) order based on the Notes for each row.

Notes, Z-A

Sorts the contents of the document in reverse alphabetical (Z-A) order based on the Notes for each row.

Status, Unchecked to Checked

Sorts the contents of the document based the state of the Status Checkboxes, from unchecked to checked.

Status, Checked to Unchecked

Sorts the contents of the document based the state of the Status Checkboxes, from checked to unchecked.

Topic, A-Z

Sorts the contents of the document in alphabetical (A-Z) order based on the Topics used in the document.

Topic, Z-A

Sorts the contents of the document in reverse alphabetical (Z-A) order based on the Topics used in the document.

Move

Use the following commands to move, indent, or outdent rows in your document:

Move Up (Control-Command–↑)

Moves the selected row and its children up one row.

Move Down (Control-Command–↓)

Moves the selected row and its children down one row.

Move Left (Control-Command–←)

Moves the selected row and its children to the left while ignoring any of its siblings.

Move Right (Control-Command–→)

Moves the selected row and its children to the right, making them children of the preceding row.

The Diferences Between Move Right/Left and Indent/Outdent

When it comes to organizing the content of your outline, it’s important to understand the differences between Moving a row right or left (up or down a level) and Indenting or Outdenting a row.

When you move a row right or left, it might seem like all you are doing is moving it and its children up or down a level in the hierarchy of your outline. However, Move Right/Left ignores any siblings (rows at the same level as the row you are moving), and will move right or left and up or down in the hierarchy as needed.

Take the following as an example:

With the Orange row selected, press Control-Command–← for Move Left. Notice that the Orange row not only moved to the left, but it also dropped all the way to the bottom of the list hierarchy. This is because you moved the Orange row Left, and to be at the same level as the Red row, the Orange row shifted left and down in the list below Yellow’s children.

(If you are trying this yourself, press Command-Z to undo that change before proceeding.)

However, when you Indent or Outdent a row, that row takes its children along for the ride. With the Orange row back in its original place, press either Command-[ or Shift-Tab to Outdent the Orange row. Notice how the Orange row, which was at the same level as the Yellow row, now becomes the Yellow row’s parent.

And if you press Command-] or Tab to Indent the Orange row, it now becomes a child of the Red row, and the Yellow row (and its children) holds its position as a child of the Orange row.

Take some time to shift some rows around with the Move Right/Left, Indent, and Outdent commands. And if you want to get really creative, toss in Move Up (Command-↑) and Move Down (Command-↓) to adjust the list hierarchy as well.

Indent (Command–])

Indents the current row.

Outdent (Command–[)

Outdents the current row.

Group (Option-Command–G)

Indents the selected rows and groups them together under a new parent row.

Ungroup (Option-Command–U)

Ungroups the rows of a selected group. Ungrouping does not remove a parent row; you’ll need to delete that separately, if you so choose.

The Window Menu

Options for working with OmniOutliner’s windows:

Minimize (Command–M)

Relegates the current window to the right side of the Dock so it’s out of your way. To bring the window back into focus, you can either choose Window ▸ [filename] (look at the bottom of the Window menu for a list of open documents), or just click on the document’s icon in the Dock to make it zoom back into view.

Zoom

This resizes the OmniOutliner document window to make it smaller (and sometimes really small), or to snap it back to normal-sized. This performs the same function as clicking the green Zoom button () in the upper-left corner of the document window.

Show/Hide Inspector (Shift-Command–I)

Open the Inspectors.

Inspectors

Choose to go directly to one of the following Inspectors:

• Style
• Column
• Outline
• Document
• Style Attributes

Bring All to Front

Brings all open OmniOutliner windows to the front of any other application windows that are currently open on your Mac.

The Help Menu

Can’t figure something out in OmniOutliner? We’re here to Help:

OmniOutliner Help

Opens the in-app help document that you’re currently reading.

Welcome

A little greeting from us to you. (Aw!)

Release Notes

Discover what’s new in the latest release of OmniOutliner. Details you’ll find here include bug fixes, additions, and changes.

Contact Omni

This queues up an email to omnioutliner@omnigroup.com so you can send us feedback about, or ask for help with, OmniOutliner. We’ve pre-filled the Subject line of the message with your specific build number and the license key for your version of OmniOutliner so we can better help you.

Managing Your Omni Licenses

If you purchased OmniOutliner from us (Thanks!), you received an email from The Omni Group that contained your license info. This included the name you used to register OmniOutliner 4, along with a string of characters that make up the license key. You’ll need these two pieces of information to enter the license in OmniOutliner.

Adding a New License

To enter your license, follow these steps:

1. From the menu bar, choose OmniOutliner ▸ Licenses to open the Licenses window.
2. Click Add License. A sheet slides down from the License window’s titlebar.
3. Switch to Mail (or some other email client you may be using) and find the email message that contains the license key for OmniOutliner 4.

   Tip
   You can quickly switch between apps on your Mac using OS X’s built-in app switcher: Command-Tab. To keep the app switcher open, hold down the Command key after pressing Tab.

   When you press Command-Tab, the app switcher pops up onscreen as a row of icons for the apps currently running on your Mac. Continue pressing Command-Tab until you find the app you need—in this case, Mail—and then let go of the Command key. You can also use Shift-Command-Tab to go backwards in the list of running apps, or you can use the Left Arrow or Right Arrow keys to go backwards or forwards, respectively.

4. In the email message, you’ll need to locate the name used for the License Owner, and the License Key. Select the name next to License Owner, and choose Edit ▸ Copy (or use Command-C) to copy the name to the pasteboard.

   Note
   If you can’t copy and paste the information, you’ll have to type it in. Make sure you enter everything exactly as it appears in your license message, including the dashes.

5. Press Command-Tab to switch from Mail back to OmniOutliner.
6. In the Owner field, choose Edit ▸ Paste (or press Command-V) to paste the name you used to register OmniOutliner.
7. Press Command-Tab to switch from OmniOutliner to Mail.
8. In the email message from us, select the License Key, and choose Edit ▸ Copy (or use Command-C) to copy the name to the pasteboard.
9. Press Command-Tab to switch from Mail to OmniOutliner.
10. Click in the License Key field, and choose Edit ▸ Paste (or use Command-V).

11. The Type drop-down menu is grayed out by default, which limits the license type to Personal for the current user account on your Mac. However, your license key can also be used for another Type, Computer:

    • Personal: This type is for your personal use, and will only be available on this computer when you are logged in as the user who installed OmniOutliner. You can install this license on more than one computer, but only for your personal use. You should not use the software on two different computers at the same time with this kind of license. If a Personal license is available, the application will always use it.

    • Computer: You can configure your Mac to use this type, which permits any other user account on your Mac to use OmniOutliner. See Configuring OmniOutliner to Support the Computer License for details on how to do this.

12. Click Save.

After clicking Save, the license key is verified, after which you’ll need to restart OmniOutliner to unlock any Pro features, if you’ve purchased OmniOutliner 4 Pro.

Purchasing a License

Let’s say that you downloaded OmniOutliner 4 from our website and put it to good use during the free 14-day trial. You made a bunch of outliney lists and even got started on character profiles for that book you’ve been wanting to write. Now that you’re totally hooked and smitten with OmniOutliner 4 Pro’s features, you’ve decided it’s time to purchase OmniOutliner 4 before your trial runs out.

You could purchase OmniOutliner 4 from the Mac App Store, or you can purchase a license key direct from us right from within OmniOutliner!

To purchase a license:

1. Open OmniOutliner 4.
2. From the menu bar, choose OmniOutliner ▸ Licenses to open the Licenses window.
3. Click Buy Licenses.

After clicking the Buy Licenses button, you will find yourself magically transported (in your preferred web browser) to the Omni Store, where you can purchase a license for OmniOutliner 4. (Naturally, this only works if you have an Internet connection.)

Configuring OmniOutliner to Support the Computer License

If there is more than one user account on your Mac, and you’d like everyone on your Mac to discover the awesomeness that is OmniOutliner, you’ll need to jump through a couple of hoops (thanks to Apple’s mandated app sandboxing for OS X 10.7 and above). To set up a Computer license, follow these steps:

1. Quit OmniOutliner 4.
2. Open a new Finder window.
3. Switch the Finder’s view settings to Column, by choosing View ▸ as Columns (or use Command-3). This will make it easier for you to traverse the folder hierarchy on your Mac.
4. Choose Go ▸ Computer.
5. Choose your Mac’s hard drive (if you haven’t renamed it, it should be named Macintosh HD), and then traverse through the following folders:

   • Library

   • Application Support
6. In the Application Support folder, create a new folder (choose File ▸ New Folder, or use Shift-Command-N) and name it Omni Group. You will need to enter your admin password to create a new folder at this level.
7. In the Omni Group folder, create a new folder and name it Software Licenses.
8. Open OmniOutliner 4 again, and then choose OmniOutliner ▸ Licenses.
9. Click Add License.

When you click Add License, you’ll notice that the Type drop-down menu is no longer grayed out, and the Computer option is available for selection. Now just enter the Owner and License Key information you received from us, click Save, and you should be set.

Removing a License

To remove a license:

1. Choose OmniOutliner ▸ Licenses.
2. In the Licenses window, select the license you want to remove.
3. Click Delete License.
4. An alert sheet appears, asking you to confirm that you really, really want to delete the license. If you are certain that you want to do this, click Delete. If you’ve changed your mind, click Cancel and then close the Licenses window.

Getting Help

When you’re in need of help—whether you’re trying to figure out how layers work, or if you’re having some other issue with OmniOutliner—it’s good to know that the Support Humans at The Omni Group are always available to lend you a hand.

The OmniOutliner Website

The OmniOutliner website is always a good place to find the latest information about OmniOutliner.

Forums

The Omni Group maintains online forums for all of our products, and you’re invited! Come share your questions and ideas with other users and Omni staff.

Email Support

If you’re stuck, if you have a good idea for the next version of OmniOutliner, or if you just want to let us know how we’re doing, go ahead and send us an email. Choose Help ▸ Contact Omni from the menu bar to conjure up a message addressed to us, or just send us an email with your thoughts. We take support pretty seriously, so you can expect a prompt response actually typed by human hands.

Release Notes

For really meticulously detailed information about what has changed in each minor version of OmniOutliner, check out Help ▸ Release Notes from the menu bar.