Smart Format
Notes taken in a hurry come out shapeless: a line that should be a heading is just another paragraph, a pasted table is trapped inside a code fence, three parallel points are crammed into one block. Smart Format (⇧⌘F) has the AI turn that into orderly Markdown.
Its boundary is hard: it changes formatting, never your words.
How to Run It
- macOS: ⇧⌘F, or the editor's ⋯ menu → Smart Format; also under Window in the menu bar
- iOS: the ⋯ menu at the top right of a note → Smart Format
The button shows a spinner while it works. The result replaces the body, and ⌘Z undoes it.
What It Does
| It does | For example |
|---|---|
| Recognises lines that are really headings | A short line on its own → ## Subheading |
| Frees tables trapped in code blocks | Table data wrapped in a fence when pasted → a real Markdown table |
| Turns aligned data into tables | CSV, space- or tab-separated rows → | col | col | |
| Bullets parallel content | A run of parallel points → a - list |
| Emphasises key terms | Adds bold or ==highlight== |
| Fences actual code | A snippet it recognises as code → a code block |
| Fixes blank lines and paragraph breaks | Splits what should be split, joins what should be joined |
What It Will Not Do
These are hard constraints, not tendencies:
- Adds, deletes or alters no text — it restructures, it does not rewrite
- Leaves your phrasing alone — tone and word choice survive intact
- Never touches code inside a fence — real code passes through untouched
- Never adds a top-level
#heading — Jotaid manages the note's title separately, so the body does not need a second one
It is not "clear formatting"
Clear formatting strips Markdown markers down to plain text (the last toolbar button). Smart Format adds the structure that should have been there. Opposite directions. See Note Formatting.
Two Safeguards
An empty result is never written. If the AI returns nothing for any reason — an API error, a content-moderation block, a truncated response — Jotaid refuses to apply it and keeps your text, rather than wiping the note. That kind of wipe would propagate through iCloud to every device, irreversibly.
Only what changed is re-processed. Run it again on the same note and Jotaid diffs against the previous version, sending only the paragraphs you altered. It falls back to the whole note only when the edit is large enough to amount to a rewrite. That saves calls and leaves untouched paragraphs exactly as they were.
What It Needs
Smart Format is an AI feature: it needs Pro and your own API key (AI Setup). The menu item is greyed out until both are in place.
Content goes to the provider you configured — never through a Jotaid server, and never into training.
Not to Be Confused With Tidy Up
Both "tidy", and they tidy entirely different things:
| Tidies what | Where | Uses AI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smart Format | The content structure of one note | The editor (⇧⌘F) | Yes |
| Tidy Up | The position of cards on the canvas | The Theme view's floating button | No — plain layout rules |
Next Steps
- Note Formatting — The toolbar and syntax for formatting by hand
- AI Features — Everything else the AI does
- AI Setup — Configuring a provider and key