Getting a document
out of the editor.
The export window, the four formats and when each is the right answer, page setup and page breaks, and what happens to the parts of a note that are not text.
Four steps, and
nothing to clean up
Export happens in its own window, so the note you were writing stays where you left it.
Open the export window
Click Export in the document toolbar, press Cmd + Shift + E (Ctrl + Shift + E on Windows and Linux), or use File → Export as PDF. A separate window opens with the current document, unsaved edits included.
Pick a format
PDF, Word, HTML or Markdown, at the top of the settings panel. The preview beside it re-renders as the real file for whichever you choose.
Set up the page
Size, orientation, margins, fonts, headers and footers, a table of contents, the code theme — and any page breaks you place by hand.
Save it
Choose where the file goes; the preview is what lands on disk. Escape or Cancel closes the window without writing.
Four ways out,
for four situations
The same note produces all four. Which you want depends on what the person on the other end will do with it.
Drawn as vectors, not printed from a browser — text stays selectable and searchable, and it prints at any size without going soft. Choose it when the layout has to be fixed, or when it is going to a printer.
Word (.docx)
A genuine Word document: styled paragraphs, real tables, embedded images, editable equations, a table of contents Word maintains. Choose it when the other person will edit or track changes.
HTML
One self-contained file — styles inline, images and equations embedded, no scripts, nothing to upload alongside it. Choose it to hand a page to someone, or to drop it into another system.
Markdown
Your note as it already is on disk, byte for byte — or the whole vault as a .zip that keeps your folder structure and the images your notes reference. This is the one export that stays free.
A link often beats a file — one you can update and take back down, rather than a PDF in someone else's inbox forever. That is what publishing a note to a share link is for.
Size, margins,
and running heads
Pages come in A4, US Letter and US Legal, portrait or landscape. Margins have four presets — normal, narrow, wide and none — or set each edge yourself. Body type follows the system font or switches to sans, serif or monospace, with point size and leading as separate dials.
Headers and footers have six slots: left, centre and right on each. Type anything into them, and five tokens are filled in as the file is written — {{page}}, {{pages}}, {{title}}, {{author}} and {{date}}. The layout reserves room for them, so a running head can never sit on the first line of text. For a bare page number, the page-numbers switch is the shortcut.
A table of contents is built from the headings already in your note: a linked list in PDF and HTML, and in Word a native field that renumbers itself when the reader edits. Page tokens are dropped from HTML, because a web page has no page two.
Header left {{title}}
center —
right {{date}}
Footer left —
center Page {{page}} of {{pages}}
right {{author}}
Where a page ends,
and who decides
Automatic breaks are on by default and mostly what you want: a heading is never stranded at the bottom of a page, and a code block, quote, callout or calculation is pushed whole onto the next page rather than sliced. Turn them off and content flows continuously.
To place one yourself, use the Page breaks list in the export sidebar: it shows the document as a stack of blocks, so hover the gap above a heading to add a break, or click the × on a marker to remove it. Breaks are offered above headings only, and they are export-time only — nothing is written back into your note, so the same file can break one way for print and another for the copy you send an editor.
Word is the exception, by design: it repaginates as the reader types, so a break placed for one page size lands in the wrong place in theirs. The document asks Word to keep each heading with its text instead.
What happens to
everything that is not text
All of it is worked out before the file is written, so nothing arrives as a broken box.
Diagrams and charts
Rendered before the export runs and embedded as a picture. Markdown export keeps them as source, because that is what the file contains.
Math
Rendered sharp in PDF and HTML rather than screenshotted, and native and editable in Word. An equation that refuses to convert falls back to a picture rather than failing the export.
Code
Fenced code keeps its highlighting in every format. Pick a theme for the exported file — including white-background variants meant for print — or let each block keep the theme the note uses.
Tables and formulas
A cell holding a formula exports as the value it computes, formatted the way its column is — so a currency column stays currency, and the reader gets numbers rather than syntax.
Calculation blocks
Worked out before export, so the document shows results beside the lines that produced them rather than an empty column.
Images
Embedded in the exported file rather than linked to your vault, so it survives being emailed. The Markdown bundle instead copies them alongside the notes.
The blocks are covered in the smart blocks guide, and table formulas in the editor guide.
Taking everything
with you
Switch the format to Markdown and the scope to your whole vault, and Ampersand writes one .zip: every note in the folders you filed it in, plus the images it references. It is the fastest way to hand your writing to another tool, or to keep a dated snapshot elsewhere.
It is a convenience, not an escape hatch: your notes are already ordinary .md files in a folder you chose, and you can copy it at any time without this app. The bundle just works out which images belong to which note.
The preview is the file
Encrypted notes
Free vs Pro
Good to know
How do I export a note to PDF in Ampersand?
Open the note, click Export in the document toolbar or press Cmd + Shift + E (Ctrl + Shift + E on Windows and Linux), leave the format on PDF, and save. The export window opens with the current document, unsaved edits included, and previews the exact file it will write.
Can I put a page break before a specific heading?
Yes. The export window sidebar lists the document as a stack of blocks: hover the gap above any heading to add a break, or click the × on one to remove it. Breaks are export-time only — they never change the .md file, so a note can break differently for a PDF and for Word.
How do I add page numbers to a PDF exported from Ampersand?
Turn on page numbers in the export window and they appear in the footer. For full control, the header and footer each have a left, centre and right slot, and you can type {{page}}, {{pages}}, {{title}}, {{author}} or {{date}} into any of them — so “Page {{page}} of {{pages}}” gives the usual running footer. Space is reserved for them, so they never overlap the text.
Can I export my whole vault at once?
Yes, as a Markdown bundle: switch the format to Markdown and the scope to the whole vault, and Ampersand writes a .zip keeping your folder structure and referenced images. Whole-vault export is Markdown only — PDF, Word and HTML export the document you have open.
What happens to Mermaid diagrams and charts when I export?
They are rendered before the export runs and embedded as a picture, so a PDF, Word file or HTML page shows the diagram you see in the editor. Markdown export is the deliberate exception: it writes your file verbatim, so a diagram stays as fenced Mermaid or Vega source.
Can I save my export settings and reuse them?
Yes. Save the current page size, margins, fonts, headers, footers and table-of-contents settings as a named preset, then load it for the next document. The format is not part of a preset, so one serves a PDF and a Word export of the same layout.
Can I export an encrypted note?
Yes, once the vault is unlocked, and Ampersand confirms the first time: an exported file is a plain, readable copy that lives outside your encrypted vault. While the vault is locked, export is unavailable — the content cannot be read.
Write in markdown,
send something typeset.
Download Ampersand, write in plain text, and export a document you would be happy to attach to an email.
Free to start · Mac, Windows & Linux · No account required