This week we shipped Document Styles, giving workspace admins the ability to change font styles, sizes, colors, and spacing in all docs across your workspace.

While we think our default styles are pretty great, you can now make your docs feel like your own and integrate them into your company's branding.

Customizable properties include:

• Font

• Size

• Style

• Weight

• Text Decoration

• Color

• Background Color

• Alignment

• Line Height

• Padding (Above & Below)

• Case

New element menu

Our element menu received a facelift, adding in the 15 embeds available and text colors. It also includes keyboard and markdown shortcuts for relevant elements and formatting.

Other fixes and improvements

• Improved registration for guest readers to onboard seamlessly.
• Enabled bidirectional mentions to be used inside Tasks.
• Added option to enable read-only access to every doc added to a handbook.

Almanac is built on a powerful infrastructure of Git-like version control where you can create temporary, linked versions of documents called branches.

We've seen users like you use branches for all kinds of editing and collaboration:

• Ideas – use a branch as a separate space where you can brainstorm on your own without messing up the main doc.

• Drafts – divide and conquer an outline with branches as a private space to think freely.

• Revisions – revise a doc that's been shared widely and get a review from the owner without the whole team seeing.

This week we released a powerful new workflow that makes it much easier to branch, compare, and merge docs.

1. Click the relocated "New Workflow" button at the top of the screen to see all the workflow options on a doc – "Create a Branch" has been added as a workflow and is listed first.

2. Once you've made edits (using track changes) on your branch, click the prominent "Merge Branch" button to compare your changes against the original doc.

3. Before merging, add a "commit note" to give everyone else context about what changed; the note will appear in the main doc's Activity Feed for posterity.

This new workflow makes branching, comparing, and merging radically easier in Almanac. We think you're going to love it.

Introducing Tasks

We formally launched tasks this week! Now, you can use Almanac to assign and complete tasks, right next to the work itself.

We hear all the time that tasks get drowned out in Google Docs notifications; as one user said, "it's impossible to parse through comments to find tasks and know what you have to do."

Notion users also told us they had to use ill-suited comments or an external task management tool like Asana to assign work on docs.

In Almanac, we make it simple by having dedicated spaces for your to-dos (Tasks) and conversations (Comments) on a doc.

You can create a task in three ways:

• Leave a task on the entire document ("please proofread this, Angela!").

• Select text to create a task on that selection ("can you fill out this section, Andy?")

• Create a task from a checklist ("Michael to schedule Scranton team meeting")

Unlike in Google Docs—where tasks are just assigned comments—tasks in Almanac are fully-featured, like the best task managers:

• Tasks have a description field for more detail

• Tasks can be drafted and assigned later

• You can reply to tasks with threaded comments

• You can filter tasks by Active, All, For Me, For Others, or Done

Coming soon, we'll have a dedicated task management tab for tracking tasks across all documents in your workspace —and even creating to-dos not connecting to any doc! 👀

Other improvements & fixes

• You can now add a password to sensitive docs you share by link.

• Workspace admins can leverage more granular sharing restrictions, including hiding handbooks from users who don't have access to them.

• The color of the navigation sidebar has been cooled to a nice midnight blue.

• We moved the "Start a new workflow" button into the top right corner of the doc editor.

• You can now access active and merged branches, as well as copies, from the top left-hand corner of the doc editor.

• Looking to quickly add more docs? Click the big "New Document" button at the bottom of the Navigation Sidebar, right next to Import.

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This week we shipped a feature that makes writing in Almanac even faster: snippets. Snippets enable you to save content (or whole docs) and easily reinsert them into a doc.

Snippets can be as simple as privacy disclaimers or boilerplate copy you add to public docs, or entire templates for repetitive meeting agendas, marketing briefs, or product specs.

Any selection of content can be created into a snippet, which adds it into your Snippet Library. Then, you can add snippets into a doc by typing " / " and selecting "Snippet" from the element menu.

We've seen snippets help users work twice as fast in Almanac than Notion, Google Docs, and Microsoft Word—we can't hear how much quicker they make your work!

Insert interactive content with Embeds

We now support 13 new types of content that can be embedded in Almanac docs so you can make your docs even more interactive.

Embed content from:

• Loom

• Airtable

• Figma

• Github

• Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, & Maps

• Miro

• Twitter

• Youtube

• Vimeo

• Web URLs

Simply type  " / " to open the element menu, select "Embed", and paste in the URL.

Comments you'll love

Our enhanced comments make giving feedback in Almanac even better:

• You can now name comment threads.

• You can pin comments you want others to read later at the top of the doc.

• You can filter comments to see those you're mentioned in, active, and new.

• The doc now smoothly scrolls to a selected comment for you.

• Overall cleaner styling that makes new comments pop out clearly.

• Coming soon: reactions to comments 👍💡🏄‍♂️

Other improvements & fixes

• A clearer icon for the "Create new doc" in the top-right of the header bar.

• Branches are now visually indented in the Version Selector to better show their hierarchy.

• Favorited docs now have a gold star ⭐️  next to the doc title instead of a gray one.

This week we shipped a game-changing enhancement to our Suggest Changes workflow: Track Changes. Track Changes is a visual way to give you and your coworkers a quick understanding of what has changed on a doc.

When Track Changes is on, new elements are marked with an underline, and deletions are marked with a strikethrough.

Track Changes is turned on by default on branches (temporary, linked doc versions), so when a branch is created through a Suggest Changes or Approval Request workflow, approvers will easily be able to see how the branch is different from the main doc.

Other improvements & fixes

• Quotes have been restyled to be more compact & with optional attribution.

• Uploaded files have been restyled and are now selectable and show file size.

• Users invited to a workspace will default to the invited workspace and not their personal workspace.

• Notification emails have a new coat of paint.

• If you click on a notification email about a comment but it has been already resolved, you'll now see a notification telling you so.

• The settings page has been redesigned.

• Tables are now more intuitive to select and delete.

• Handbooks now have icons to easily distinguish them from regular docs.

This week we launched a redesigned organizational system for docs.

There are now four ways you can navigate around your docs:

• Recent Docs, which is a quick view of the docs you most recently opened.

• All Docs, which consolidates the "Unfiled Docs" and "Folders" pages into a single space that show you all the folders and docs that you have access to.

• Groups, which allows you to find docs by who they're shared with.

• Search, accessible by via the Header Bar on any screen or the Command Line.

On the "All Docs" page, you can sort docs by any column header, like name or last modified. You can also share, move, create, copy, and delete folders or docs.

Our beta users have been using "All Docs" just like Finder on MacOS—but instead, it's in the cloud, with best-in-class sharing and permissions for collaboration.

Along with our lightning-fast search and ability to create curated handbooks, these new navigation features are part of our mission to keep you and your docs seamlessly organized in Almanac—so you can find the right doc quickly and get back to work.

Other improvements and fixes

• Tables are now easier to select and delete

• We've polished the controls and formatting options on images

Our goal at Almanac is to provide more structured, transparent, and integrated ways for teams to collaborate without needing a Zoom meeting or Slack message.

For important, high-risk docs where mistakes can be vey costly, our latest enhancements to the "Approval Request" workflow add more guardrails, clearer options, and enhanced context so that you can keep track of every edit and eliminate opportunities for error.

The Approval workflow now only has one "approver" so that there's a clear, single decision maker in your process. In the flow, the approver can either make changes and "approve" the doc, or "send back" the doc to you for more revisions.

All edits in an Approval Request now happen on a branch—a temporary, linked version of the main doc—so that it's clear what was changed over the base.

While the Approval Request is open, the main doc is locked in read-only mode, and the workflow concludes when the approver agrees to all the edits made and merges their branch into the main doc.

In Approval Request, you can compare the changes on the branch to the main doc, and use the activity feed to see exactly who edited what, where, and when—great for compliance and legal redlining.

Finally, we added in graphics to explain the process at every step, so all stakeholders understand where the approval is, who is "holding the ball," and what happens next.

And lastly, we added a fun confetti animation once a doc has been approved 🎉

Other improvements and fixes

• Mentions can now be created in headings, and have a faster load times

• All Docs can now be sorted by Name or Last Modified

• Adding in new lines to a numbered list automatically updates to the correct order

• Selecting a group of text or a list to indent works just like Microsoft Word

Getting informal feedback is an important way to make sure your work is aligned with your team.

But sharing a link to a doc in an email or Slack thread can often result in scattered comments, unclear edits, and missed deadlines.

With our 'Ask for Feedback' workflow, you can keep work moving forward by organizing and tracking feedback right in your doc. Here's how it works:

Share access to Handbook docs

As you create a handbook in Almanac, you need to make sure that everyone has some level of access to every doc. But going into each and every doc to change the sharing permissions was a pain, so we've made it incredibly easy to change the sharing permissions for all the docs in your handbook in one place.

Other improvements

• We've made optimizations to the viewport to automatically hide the table of contents in the doc editor at smaller widths.

• Images can now be dragged and dropped directly into the editor (or copy and pasted).

• Comments can now have the option to be turned into a task.

• Comments can be pinned in the comment tab as "Important Comments" to increase their visibility.

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We've putting some polishing touches on our 'Share with Read Receipts' workflow and are excited to share it with the world.

Read Receipts is a way of sharing a doc that asks the recipients to acknowledge that they've seen and read the doc. Using the "Share with Read Receipts" workflow provides transparency and analytics to you around who's viewed and completed the task.

Here's how it works:

Embed images from Unsplash and GIFs from Giphy

You can now easily add royalty-free images to your docs from Unsplash as well as popular gifs from Giphy using the element menu.

Sundry Quality of Life Improvements

• Workspaces can have multiple handbooks for different teams, offices, or projects

• Lists (bullets or numbers) can be indented infinite times

• When clicking on a comment from an email notifications, you scroll directly to the comment on the doc

• Resolving comments is 300% faster

• Your Almanac Inbox is organized by default to docs with outstanding tasks

• Clicking on a mention in a doc gives you the option to View, Edit, or Unlink

This week we shipped an improved Inbox for every Almanac workspace. The refreshed Inbox helps you always know the status of what you have to do and what you've asked others to do—without having to meet or ping someone for an update.

You can now view:

• Approval Requests, Feedback Requests, and Read Receipts assigned to you or that you've assigned to others

• Tasks assigned to you or that you've assigned to others

• Comments you've been @mentioned in and comments you've @mentioned others in

You can also take actions directly from the Inbox:

• Mark a task as complete

• Delete a comment

• Send a reminder

• Cancel a request

Toggle Blocks

We've also added a new element to the doc editor: toggle blocks. Toggle blocks let you put information underneath a 🔻Toggle Block that can be collapsed for consolidated viewing.

This is great for times when you want to provide more context or information without distracting from the overall flow of the doc. Give your readers a choice to dive deeper or stay high-level!

Toggle Blocks can nest any type of element inside of them: text, headings, images, etc.

Command Line

Nearly every action you can take in Almanac is now available at your fingertips with our new Command Line. Use ⌘+K (Mac), Ctrl+K (Windows), or click the ⚡️ icon in the top right corner of any page to launch it and start typing to search for commands.

You can also use the Command Line to discover keyboard shortcuts that make you work even faster.

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We've introduced the ability to create a handbook for your Almanac workspace.

Handbooks can feature critical docs like company policies, new employee onboarding, vision and values, meeting agendas and notes, product specs, and marketing copy.

With a handbook, your distributed team has one-click access to all the information they need—so you can eliminate the Slack messages or Zooms asking "where's that doc again?!"

In Almanac, creating and using a handbook is super awesome:

• Populate the Handbook Index and have the navigation panel auto-update

• Easily find handbook docs in a tab in the left navigation panel

• @Mention docs in the Index to easily include in the Handbook and navigation panel

• Build out your Handbook Index with full doc editing capabilities including images, gifs, tables, and more.

Open-sourcing Almanac's Team handbook

If you're curious about how your handbook would look in Almanac, just take a look at ours:

We have decided to publish our own internal team handbook here for everyone to see.

The Almanac team handbook is our company's operating system: a central doc repository of the principles, structures, and systems we use to run the company.

As part of Almanac's virtues around ownership, results, and feedback, we encourage suggestions from employees on any of these pages to make sure they represent our latest processes, policies, and foremost thinking.

With the ability to suggest changes on any doc in the handbook, our documentation becomes crowd-sourced and no longer just one person's responsibility to ensure accuracy.