Words

In short. Write or paste a paragraph. Press ⌘ Return. Desk sets beside it the five passages of the text that sit nearest your paragraph, in the text's own words. Nothing is written for you. Your draft stays in your browser until you save it, to your computer or to your own Google Drive.

Words is in private beta. If you don't have the password, use Contact us on the password page.

The four texts

text	address	what is beside you
King Lear	/desk/king-lear	the play, scene by scene, with Folger line numbers
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson Correspondence	/desk/adams-jefferson	the letters, one by one (Founders Online, National Archives)
Climate Migration	/desk/climate-migration	the documents, each naming its source where it gave one
AI Bills, Texas 89R H.B. 3512	/desk/tx-89r-hb3512	the bill, section by section, in five versions

Write

Click in the page and type. Return starts a new paragraph; Shift Return breaks a line inside one. Backspace at the start of a paragraph joins it to the one before.

To bring in text you already have, paste it. Every line break becomes a new paragraph, and empty lines are dropped. Desk takes what you paste as plain text, without formatting.

Format

Select words. A small bar appears above them:

button	does
B	bold (⌘ B)
I	italic (⌘ I)
H	makes the paragraph a heading
•	makes the paragraph a list item
1.	makes the paragraph a numbered item
“	makes the paragraph a quote
Link	links the words to a web address (⌘ K)

The same button again takes the format off. The page shows the formatting, never the marks behind it. In a list or a quote, Return carries it on to the next paragraph; Return on an empty item ends it.

Desk keeps your draft as plain markdown, the format many writing tools read, so it opens anywhere.

Files

Words takes pasted text, not Word, PDF or text files. + Add a document, in the file drawer, opens Desk's own save files. To bring in a document, paste its text.

Read a paragraph

A paragraph can be up to 5,000 characters. Put the cursor in a paragraph and press ⌘ Return (Ctrl Enter on Windows), or click Read in the line under it.

• The dot at the paragraph's left fills in.
• The line under it says Read · 5 beside this.
• Click Couplings (the passages set beside you) on that line. The drawer opens on the right with the five passages nearest your paragraph, nearest first, each with its citation.
• Each passage opens at its sentence nearest yours, marked with "…". More shows the whole passage; Less folds it again.
• Click In Lear (or In Letters, In Documents, In Bill) to see a passage in its place in the text.

If you change the paragraph afterwards, the line says Changed since read. Click Read again. If a reading can't be made, the line says why: "Not read: no process found in it" when Desk finds no sentence with someone doing something that it can read, or "Could not read" with the server's answer.

Desk reads your words, not the formatting: a heading, a list mark or a link's address is not part of the reading.

What "nearest" means: Desk reads each sentence, clause by clause, for who does what and what is said about them, and reads every passage of the text the same way. The passages whose sentences sit nearest yours are the ones set beside you. No model writes, summarises or judges anything.

Read the text itself

On the line under a paragraph, click the text's name (Lear, Letters, Documents or Bill). The drawer shows the text one scene or document at a time. ‹ and › step through it, and the search box finds passages in it.

Keep notes

• Quote a passage: select words in a passage, then Quote. The words are copied with their citation, ready to paste, and kept as a note on the paragraph you're working on.
• Note on a passage: select words, then Note, write, Keep.
• Note on your own words: open Notes under a paragraph, select words in your paragraph, write, Keep.

Notes stay with you. They go into your saves, and never into a gem. Remove takes a note out of your draft; saves you made before keep it. It is the one thing on Words you can remove.

Save, and come back

The foot line says Saved and a time. That is your browser keeping your draft automatically. It is not a file.

To keep your work for good, choose once where it goes. Open the file drawer; under Current Room it says Save: Local · Drive.

Local, on your computer:

1. Click Local. Your computer asks where to put the file and what to call it.
2. Desk writes the file there. Every later Save writes over that same file.
3. To use another file, click change beside its name.

In Safari and Firefox the browser can't write over a file, so each Save goes to your Downloads as a new file, named like desk-record-king-lear-20261020-1530.json.

Drive, in your own Google Drive:

1. Click Drive. Google's own window opens. Sign in, and allow Desk to see the files it makes. Desk asks for nothing else in your Drive.
2. Choose the folder Desk saves into, or make one by name. If Google's window stays blank (Safari), make a folder by name below it.
3. Desk writes two files there: the record (.json) and your draft (.md), in plain markdown that opens in any writing tool. Its last line, hidden in most markdown viewers, names the record it goes with and that record's fingerprint. Every later Save writes over the same two files.
4. open shows the folder in Drive. change picks another folder and moves the two files into it.

Your browser writes to Google directly. Habitat's server never sees the words. Google's sign-in lasts an hour, in that browser tab.

After that, Save in the foot line goes where you chose, each time.

The record holds your paragraphs, every reading, your notes and the room as it stood, sealed with a fingerprint and signed with your browser's key.

Each save follows the one before it, so your saves make a history in order. The file drawer shows your Latest save and what changed in it ("¶2 added; ¶1 edited; a note added (¶1)").

• Look at your latest save: click it in the file drawer. It opens read only. Back to your draft returns you. Earlier saves are kept too, out of sight; open one from its file.
• Pick up from the listed save, once your draft has moved past it: Continue from here. Your current draft is kept as a save first.
• Open a save file from your computer: open the file drawer and click + Add a document, or drag the file onto the page.
• See how your writing moved: with two or more saves, How your writing moved shows how far each save moved from the one before, against how far it would move by chance.

Nothing in the list is erased. You must save your work to keep it: the file drawer says so, because clearing this browser's data removes the browser's copy.

Looking at a save or a gem

When you open a save or a gem, a line at the top says what is open ("Open: your save of …") and that your draft is kept as it was. The file is read only. You can leave one remark per paragraph on it and Keep it; Save then returns the file with your remarks. On a gem, Save writes a separate small file of your remarks, and the gem itself is unchanged. Back to your draft, or Close in the foot, returns you.

Check

Click the eye at the top of the page. It shows where your draft is kept and which key signs it, and checks at once: Desk reads each of your paragraphs again and says whether the same passages sit beside them, for example "Checked · 3 paragraphs read again · the same passages beside each", with the fingerprint of the text it read against. A ✓ or ✗ comes first. Check again runs it again. On a save you opened, the check first confirms the file is exactly as it was saved and who signed it.

Gems and rooms

A gem gives someone the shape of your reading, without your words. A room lets invited members leave remarks beside your draft. Both live in Room, in the drawer; gems have their own panel at its foot. See Rooms, members and gems.

About this desk

The ? at the far left of the foot opens About Habitat Desk: the text's credit, how to use Desk, and what each word on the page means, in our own words.

Keys worth knowing

keys	does
⌘ Return / Ctrl Enter	read the paragraph
⌘ B / ⌘ I / ⌘ K	bold / italic / link, on the selected words
Alt ↑ / Alt ↓	previous / next paragraph
⌘ \ / Ctrl \	open or close the file drawer
Esc	leave the paragraph, or return from the drawer
q / n	on a speech in the text: quote it whole / note on it

What it does not do. It doesn't write, suggest, correct or score. It doesn't keep your paragraph on the server when it reads it, and it never sees your Drive beyond the files Desk makes. It shows the five nearest passages and nothing about whether they are "right".