Focus mode is for the stretch of writing where the folders, the list and the chat only get in the way. The note you are working on fills the window, and everything else steps aside until you want it back. It is a desktop feature, on Mac, Windows and Linux, and part of every plan.
Turning it on
Open the note menu, the three dots in the editor header, and choose Focus Mode, right under Open to the Right. Or press Cmd Shift F on a Mac, Ctrl Shift F on Windows and Linux. Settings lists the shortcut under Shortcuts, in the Editor group, with the other shortcuts.
What it hides
The folder list, the note list and the chat panel go, and so does any other note you had open beside it. The editor header goes too, so the note is all there is. Bring the pointer up to the top of the window and the header comes back over the note, with the formatting toolbar, the note menu, a full screen button and a button to leave. Start typing and it gets out of the way again. Settings and the chat button stay hidden until you are back.
Without pages, the text stands in a centered column about seventy characters wide, with room above it. If your text notes are on pages, the pages stay on their desk the way they always look.
A handwriting note fills the window too, and keeps its header with the drawing tools.
Full screen
Focus mode opens in the window as it is, at its size and in its place. To give the note the whole screen, bring the pointer up to the top and click the corners in the header, between the note menu and the arrows. Click them again to go back to the window.
Leaving focus mode also leaves a full screen it started, so the window ends up the way it was. A window that was already full screen when you began stays that way, and if you leave full screen yourself, with the green button on a Mac, focus mode carries on in the window.
Getting back
Any of these ends focus mode and brings the panels back the way you left them:
- Press Esc while you are writing in the note
- Press Cmd Shift F, or Ctrl Shift F, again
- Click the arrows at the right of the header
- Choose Exit Focus Mode in the note menu, where Focus Mode was
With a menu open or the cursor in a field, like the find bar, Esc closes that first.
The options
Settings, Editor has a Focus mode section under the toolbar switches, with three switches of its own:
- Typewriter scrolling, off to begin with. The line you are typing stays a little above the middle of the screen, and the note scrolls up under it.
- Dim other paragraphs, off to begin with. Everything but the paragraph you are writing fades back.
- Word count, on to begin with. A small count in the bottom right corner, like 1,234 words. Chinese and Japanese characters count one word each.
The options sync between your computers, and the chat can change them for you, like turn on typewriter scrolling, see Change settings from the chat.
On mobile
Focus mode is on desktop only: on the phone a note already has the screen to itself. Pages, the note font and the line height work on both.