The library: folders, labels and search

Manuals, Documents, folders and labels

Sidebar › Manuals or Documents; Home › Folders › a folder or a label

Each of these opens a page of cards:

• Manuals: only manuals. The buttons at the top are New manual and Record a task.
• Documents: only documents, such as PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets, decks, pictures and text files. The button at the top is Add a document, and a File type row shows one kind at a time. See Documents by file type.
• A folder: what is filed in it, with the folders inside it as tiles. The buttons at the top are New folder, Add a document, New manual and Record a task. A folder inside another also shows a trail of links to the folders it sits in.
• A label: everything that carries that label.

Sopycat itself opens on Home, and the Sopycat logo takes you back there. See Home.

On Manuals and Documents, cards are grouped. Needs attention comes first, then Pinned. On Manuals the rest is one group per folder; click a group's name to open that folder. When some items are in folders, the ones in no folder are grouped as Unfiled. On Documents the rest is one group per file type, unless Group by is set to By Folder.

Cards come newest first. Use Sort to order them by Last updated (the default), Last opened, A to Z or Custom order, and the Grid / List switch to show cards or a list. The view is remembered on this computer; the sort holds while Sopycat is open and goes back to newest first when it next starts. In Custom order, anything new since you last arranged the cards comes first.

Press F2 on a card to change its name in place: Enter keeps the new name, Escape leaves it as it was. The card's ⋯ › Rename does the same in a small window.

On a folder's page, the ⋯ beside the folder's name has Save as one PDF: it puts every finished manual in the folder, and in the folders inside it, into one PDF: a contents page whose entries jump to each manual, the manuals in the folder's order, and a page number on every page. An employee handbook or a department binder in one click.

Documents by file type

Documents › File type › Pictures, or Documents › Group by

When your documents are of two or more kinds, a File type row sits at the top of the Documents page: All, then only the kinds you have (PDFs, Pictures, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Word, Text and Other), each with a count. Click a kind to see only that kind, and All to see everything again. The choice is remembered on this computer.

The cards are grouped under a heading for each file type. To group them by folder instead, use Group by, beside Sort, and choose By Folder. By File Type puts it back. This choice is remembered too.

If you have chosen a kind and there is nothing of it, the page says "No pictures here" (or whichever kind it is) with a Show every file type link.

Make and use folders

Folders work like folders on a drive. Each item lives in one folder, and folders can hold other folders, for example "Clients" with "Riverside Dental" inside it.

Make a folder

Home › Folders › New folder, or a folder's page › New folder

Home has a Folders section under the recording block and your recent manuals: the top-level folders as cards, each with how many items it holds, and the labels under them. All folders opens the Folders page with every top-level folder.

1. Press New folder in Home's Folders section, or New folder on a folder's page to make one inside that folder.
2. Type a name, such as "Onboarding" or "2026".
3. Press Create.

To make a folder inside another one, open the folder's ⋯ menu and choose New folder inside…. You can also type "New folder" in the command palette (Ctrl+K).

Put things in a folder

Any of these works:

• Drag a card onto a folder card on a folder's page or the Folders page.
• Open the item's ⋯ menu › Move to folder… and pick a folder. New folder… in that list makes a folder and moves the item in one go. Move to the top level takes it out of every folder.
• Open a folder, then drag files from File Explorer onto it, or press Add a document. New items land in that folder.

Moving an item into a folder is not an edit. It does not change the item's "last updated" date and does not make a new version.

Rename, move or remove a folder

• Rename: open the folder card's ⋯ on Home or on the page of the folder it is in, choose Rename, type the new name and press Enter (Esc cancels). On a folder's own page, the pencil next to its name does the same.
• Move: open the folder card's ⋯, choose Move to…, then Top level or another folder.
• Remove: ⋯ › Remove folder. The items inside move up one level. Nothing is deleted.

Two folders in the same place cannot share a name, even with different capital letters, and a folder cannot go inside itself.

Tag items with labels

Labels are tags. One item can have many, and they work across folders. A manual about refunds might sit in the "Accounts" folder with the labels "QuickBooks" and "Month end". New recordings get the name of the program they were recorded in as their first label.

To add labels:

• Open an item's ⋯ › Labels, then tick existing labels or choose New label….
• In a manual, type in the label box under the title and press Enter or a comma.
• Select several items and press Add label (see below).

Home lists each label in use as a chip under the folders, with a count. Click a label to see everything that has it. The label's page has Rename, which renames it everywhere, and Remove, which takes it off every item. The items themselves stay.

Search the library

Manuals or Documents › Search titles and every step…

Type in the search box at the top of Manuals or Documents. It looks in titles, labels, file names, folder names, summaries, owners, every step of every manual, and the full text of PDFs, Word files and notes. Results appear under Results, each with a snippet of the matching words.

• Search covers what you are looking at: Manuals finds only manuals, and Documents only documents. Inside a folder or a label, it searches only there. To search everything at once, press Ctrl+K, or type in the search box on Home.
• Capital letters and accents do not matter, so "cafe" finds "Café".
• The start of a word is enough: "inv" finds "invoice".
• Small typing slips are forgiven in longer words.
• Every word you type must match. If nothing matches them all, you see items that match at least half of them.

The command palette (Ctrl+K) searches the same way from anywhere, and can jump straight to the matching step of a manual.

Arrange cards by dragging

Pick up a card by its grip and drag it where you want it, in any sort: the other cards slide aside, the sort switches to Custom order, and the new order is saved. Drop it on a folder to file it there instead.

Prefer the keyboard? Use the item's ⋯ › Move up or Move down. This switches the sort back to Custom order.

To keep something at the very top, open its ⋯ › Pin to the top. Pinned items also appear under Pinned in the sidebar.

Work on several items at once

1. Hover over a card and tick its box. Ctrl+click adds or removes a card, Shift+click on a checkbox selects a range, and Ctrl+A selects everything on the page.
2. A bar appears saying how many are selected.
3. Choose Move to folder, Add label, Pin or Unpin, or Delete. You can also drag one selected card and the whole selection comes along.
4. Press Clear (Esc) or Esc when you are done.

Deleted items go to Recently deleted for 30 days. See Backups and Recently deleted.

What "Needs attention" means

This group at the top of the page collects items that want a look: manuals still being written, ones that failed, manuals past their review date, and manuals whose steps no longer match the screen. Home lists the same items under Needs attention, along with any manual you have been asked to confirm you read. To give a manual an owner and a review date, open it and click Who keeps this up to date? under the title. See Keeping manuals current.