Introduction❯
Welcome to OmniOutliner 4.1!
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.
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:
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.
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.
Our preferred method of delivering the Help docs is via the iBooks Store in EPUB format. The documentation there is the same documentation you’ll find on our website and bundled within the app.
The advantage of downloading the OmniOutliner 4.1 for Mac User Manual from the iBooks Store is that whenever we update the docs for a new version of OmniOutliner, you’ll receive a notification in iBooks telling you that there’s an update waiting for you. And the big win of EPUB over PDF is that any notations or bookmarks you make in the book carry forward to new versions of the documentation.
Supporting the latest technologies in and optimized for OS X Yosemite, OmniOutliner 4.1 packs in more of the features long-time Outliner fans have been asking for, including:
A brand-spanking new UI—Yes, that’s right folks, we’ve totally redesigned OmniOutliner 4’s UI. Out with the old paradigms and in with the new.
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.
Whether you’ve purchased OmniOutliner 4.1 Pro, or are considering upgrading from the Standard edition, here are some features you’ll only find in OmniOutliner Pro:
AppleScript support—Automate your workflows with AppleScript.
Export support for Microsoft Word—Export your outline as a .docx file (either indented or as an outline) that can be opened in Microsoft Word.
Manual page breaks—Choose whether a row or a particular row style forces a manual page break when printing the document.
Note customization—Adjust line height and padding for Notes.
Display Notes inline or in a pane—Inline notes can sometimes get in the way. Rather than forcing you to hide and show them, we’ve added an option to view Notes in a separate pane at the bottom of the outline area.
Row handle visibility—Use the Style inspector to change the visibility of row handles. You can even set row handles independent from one another so that some rows always have the handles visible while others only appear when you mouse over the row or not at all.
Child indentation—Choose whether child rows will be indented, or if they are aligned with their parent rows.
Adjust line heights and advanced row spacing—Use the Style inspector to tweak the line height and spacing around child rows.
Improved sorting options—sorting opt-out
Hide columns—Show and hide columns to your hearts’ delight.
Document-specific toolbars—Create custom toolbars that contain only the buttons you need for that special document you’ve been working on.
Folded editing—No, we don’t mean that you can edit while in a pike position. We’re talking about the ability to have the text within a row hide when you’re not editing its content, and to reveal everything when you have the row selected.
Note
Unsure whether you have Pro installed? Choose OmniOutliner ▸ About OmniOutliner for details on the current version and licensing status of the app.
All this in a snappier, faster UI, OmniOutliner 4.1 is built for OS X Yosemite and the latest Mac hardware.
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.