# Markdown Notes, With a Board of Sticky Notes

> Write notes that read as they look, keep each page as a Markdown file in your own folder, and lay any section out as a board of coloured sticky notes.

- Canonical: https://prisment.io/blog/markdown-notes-with-a-sticky-notes-board/
- Published: 2026-10-30
- Checked against: Prisment v2.1.4
- Author: Prisment Team (Documentation & Developer Tooling)
- Publisher: Prisment, https://prisment.io/

**Notes in Prisment is a notebook of pages, each page one Markdown file in your own folder, and any section of it can be laid out as a board of coloured sticky notes.** You write a page the way it reads, tick its to-dos where they stand, and find it again by its words. It is free, with no account and no server of ours in the path ([how your documents are handled](https://prisment.io/privacy/)). The [sample workspace](https://prisment.io/workspace/) opens with a notebook to try; plans have [an article of their own](https://prisment.io/blog/gantt-chart-and-notes-in-markdown/).

![A dark Prisment window: the Lumen Studio notebook in the sidebar, its Meetings, Ideas, Decisions and To-do sections listed with their pages, and the Ideas section as a board of four sticky notes in green, blue, yellow and pink](https://prisment.io/images/blog/notes-board-sticky.png)

## 1. What is a page, and where is it kept?

**A page is a title and a text in Markdown, kept as one file in a folder for its section, inside a folder for its notebook.** In a folder workspace the notebook sits in the hidden `.prisment/notes/` folder of the folder you opened, or in another folder you name; a browser workspace keeps it in the browser. Git or a synced drive carries it if you choose, and since Prisment makes no backup of its own, that is also where a copy comes from.

Notes stand on their own: nothing is read out of your documents, and a page's to-dos are your to-do list.

## 2. How do you write one?

**Click and type: a page is written as it reads, in the same editor as your documents, and saved a moment after you stop.** There is no Save button and no Markdown on screen. What you type in Markdown becomes what it stands for: `#` and a space starts a heading, `-` a list, `[ ]` a to-do, and `**bold**` turns bold as you close it. The bar under the title has the rest, from a checkbox to a table, and Undo steps back page by page.

A to-do can carry a name and a day, as in `- [ ] Confirm the date @maya 2026-11-05`, so the file reads the same in GitHub or any editor. Pin a page to the top of its section, move it to another, or delete it with Undo.

## 3. How does a section become a board of sticky notes?

**Choose Board as the view, and every section shows its pages as coloured cards on a wall you can add to, write on and rearrange.** A card is still the page, one Markdown file, drawn as the page is: tables, callouts and diagrams included.

1. Press **Notes** on the activity bar and choose **Board**, beside the filter above the sections.
2. Choose a section in the sidebar: its pages are its cards.
3. Press **Add note** for a new card, its title ready to type, and click its text to write it in place.
4. Drag a card by its header anywhere on the board, and size it by its bottom-right corner.
5. Give it a colour, yellow, pink, blue, green or purple, from the palette at its top right.

Without a mouse, **Move or size with keys** in a card's **⋯** lifts it for the arrow keys. On a phone the board is one column, and a card moves by name from the same menu.

## 4. Which card style suits a light or a dark theme?

**Three styles draw the same cards, and each keeps every word readable in every document style, light or dark.**

| Style | A card is | Its colour is |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Sticky, the default | paper, in dark ink even in a dark theme | the whole note; a note with none is yellow |
| Soft | raised a step off the board | a wash of the card and its edge |
| Outline | a line on the board's own ground | the line, over a breath of its hue |

A style picked on a board is that workspace's own, and **Settings › Notes** sets the default for every workspace. Styles are kept on this computer and change no file.

![The same two cards, Waitlist email in green and Check-in list in blue, drawn in the Soft, Sticky and Outline styles, each in a dark document style on the left and a light one on the right](https://prisment.io/images/blog/notes-card-styles.png)

We checked every colour in every style on 30 October 2026, and not all of it read. On a sticky note in a dark style, a table's header row, a folded section and a diagram's labels came out dark on dark; on coloured Soft cards, links in a teal accent nearly vanished. Now a table, a folded section or a callout on a sticky note is paper and ink, a diagram keeps your style's own colours, and a coloured card mixes its links and quieter words so every word meets the contrast the web's accessibility guidelines ask for (4.5:1, WCAG AA). A test measures every colour in every style, so it cannot slip back unnoticed.

## 5. How do you find a page again?

**Type in Search pages: it matches every word in any order, ignores capitals and accents, and understands a few searches of its own.**

| Type | To find |
| :--- | :--- |
| `"call the venue"` | the words together, in that order |
| `-draft` | the pages without the word |
| `venue OR hall` | either one |
| `@todo` or `@done` | a to-do still open, or to-dos all ticked |
| `@pinned`, `@today`, `@last7days` | pinned, changed today, or in the last 7 days |
| `@title venue` | the word in titles only |

The filters above the sections, **All pages**, **To-do**, **Today** and **Pinned**, gather their pages into one list and narrow the board too. **Quick Open** (Cmd+P, or Ctrl+P) jumps to any page in any notebook.

![A dark Prisment window on the To-do page, This week and next, with one to-do ticked and struck through, and @todo typed in the sidebar's search, listing the five pages that still have a to-do open](https://prisment.io/images/blog/notes-page-search.png)

## 6. What is in the file?

**The page's own lines: its title and dates at the top, then its text; a colour is a `color:` line, and where a card sits is one line of its section's file.** Moving a card writes no page.

```md
---
prisment: page
version: 1
title: Waitlist email
created: 2026-09-29T11:00:00Z
updated: 2026-09-30T17:20:00Z
color: green
---

When a place opens, the subject line says it first.
```

![A green card titled Waitlist email on the board, with arrows to its two files: the page ideas/waitlist-email.md, whose color: green line is its colour, and the section's ideas/section.md, whose one board: line holds every card's place and size](https://prisment.io/images/blog/markdown-notes-with-a-sticky-notes-board-files.png)

You, a colleague and an AI agent can edit the same files. Before it saves, Prisment reads the page again: if it changed since you opened it, your change is not saved, and the page shows what is there now.

## 7. Where does it stop?

**Prisment keeps notes and shows them; it adds no sync service, no reminders and no live co-editing.** A change from someone else arrives when Git or your drive delivers it, and a notebook can be kept only for you, on this computer, while the rest of the workspace is shared. Every option is in the guide, [Plans and notes](https://prisment.io/help/#plans-and-notes). Free, no account: [open the workspace](https://prisment.io/workspace/) and start with the sample notebook.

## Questions this article answers

### Is a note in Prisment a Markdown file?

Yes. Each page is one Markdown file, with its title, dates and, if it has one, its colour in the front matter at the top, kept in a folder for its section inside a folder for its notebook. GitHub and any editor show it as an ordinary Markdown page.

### Where does Prisment keep my notes?

In a folder workspace, in the hidden .prisment/notes/ folder of the folder you opened, or in another folder you name; in a browser workspace, in the browser. Prisment makes no backup of its own, so keep the notes in a folder a cloud drive syncs or in a Git repository you push.

### Can I use my notes as sticky notes on a board?

Yes. With Board as the view, a section shows its pages as coloured cards you can add, write on, drag anywhere and resize. A card's colour is a line in its page and its place on the board is a line in the section's own file, so moving a card changes no page.

### Do the sticky notes work in dark mode?

Yes. The Soft, Sticky and Outline card styles each keep a card's words readable in every document style, light or dark. Sticky notes stay paper written in dark ink in a dark theme; a table or a callout on one is drawn in ink on the paper, while code and diagrams keep the style's own colours.

### How do I find the notes that still have open to-dos?

Type @todo in Search pages, or choose the To-do filter above the sections. Search also takes "a phrase", -word to leave pages out, OR between two words, and @done, @pinned, @today and @last7days, and Cmd+P or Ctrl+P opens Quick Open to jump to any page in any notebook.

### Do notes need an account or a server?

No. Notes are written to your own folder or your browser, and Prisment has no cloud storage or accounts for them. That is about your documents; the hosted website separately uses aggregate analytics, which the privacy policy describes.