So you're new to Coda and want to learn more. Here’s a short collection of thoughts from someone who’s just been using it for a couple days.
What is it? - Coda is like a mashup of Word, Excel, and app development. It has text layout and formatting features like Word, data, calculations, and graphing ability like Excel, and the bells, whistles, and integrations to make your “document” look and work great for mobile.
How does it work? - You basically author your document through a “desktop” web browser (like with Google Docs), then set your sharing permissions for your intended audience (private, small team, or the whole world). The document will natively look and work great on mobile browsers.
Tip: Have a mobile device handy, or use another browser window in developer mode for mobile, to see how Coda translates your doc’s formatting between desktop and mobile. See
How do I learn to use it? - Coda (looks like it) has been designed to be super user friendly, so getting started is easy. However, for more advanced features, I suggest:
. Just watch a few videos to get your feet wet but then I would move on.
Templates. Now you kind of know what Coda is, but you don’t know exactly how to do things and don’t really know what’s possible. Templates give you a variety of examples (that you can just copy) to start doing cool stuff immediately. Unfortunately you have to “find them” for yourself, but it’s not hard. Just go into any doc, and in the upper right corner click Explore > Templates > All.
Making your own doc. Now you’ve seen what’s possible, and want to make stuff, but you’re going to run into questions. The
Once you’ve gotten this far, I think you’re off to the races. Good luck and have fun! I don’t have any personal stake in this; I just think Coda’s a really useful and innovative approach to documents and collaboration so I’m hoping others do too. Enjoy.
p.s. Coda team: May I (humbly) suggest that you put together something like this Quick Start Guide as a welcome package to new users? Also, perhaps it would be good to “game-ify” a set of Templates (beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels) in order to showcase a core set of Coda’s capabilities?
Want to print your doc? This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
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