Build Outline of a document in CotEditor

The Outline feature extracts specific parts of your document and generates a list according to the definition of the syntax style.

The generated outline is shown in the navigation bar and the inspector.

Display Outline menu

The Outline menu is a pop-up menu displayed in the navigation bar located beneath the toolbar. It displays the nearest Outline item above the insertion point and moves the insertion point to the corresponding part by opening the menu and clicking an item in the menu.

To show the Outline menu:

  1. Choose View > Show Navigation Bar.

Display Outline inspector

The Outline inspector is a table style list displayed in the Outline pane in the side panel of the document. You can get a quick overview of the document's outline like a table of contents and move to the corresponding part in the editor by clicking an item in the list.

To show the Outline inspector, perform either of the followings:

Move among Outline items

You can move the insertion point in the editor to the previous/next Outline item by choosing Find > Select Previous/Next Outline Item.

Customize extraction rules

The rules, what items should appear and how they should be titled in the Outline list, are set per syntax style. You can configure them in the Syntax Style definition > outline rules.

See also