Writing together, live

Normally, two people opening the same wiki page are working on separate copies — whoever saves second is told the page was edited elsewhere, and has to choose whose version survives. Live editing removes that problem: you both type into the same page and see each other’s cursors as you go.

Note

Live editing is a Collector feature, checked against the world owner’s plan rather than yours. If someone on a Collector plan shares a world with you, you can write in it whatever plan you’re on.

Turning it on

It’s a per-world setting, not a per-page one — collaboration tends to be how a group works rather than something you’d want on one page and not another.

1. Open the world you want to co-author.

2. In the world’s settings, turn on Live editing.

3. Anyone you’ve shared the world with as an editor can now write alongside you. Viewers still see the page and your cursors, but can’t type.

What changes

Saving stops being a thing you do. With live editing on, the page saves itself continuously — a couple of seconds after you stop typing, and again when the last person closes the tab. There’s no Save button to press and no “unsaved changes” to lose.

You’ll see who else is here. Their cursor appears in your text with their name on it, in a colour that matches their dot in the row of faces above the page. Everybody sees the same colour for the same person.

Undo stays yours. Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z) undoes your last change, not your collaborator’s — even if theirs came after.

If you can’t type

The page will tell you why, but the two common reasons are:

• You have read access. You were shared the world as a viewer rather than an editor. You’ll see everyone’s changes arrive live; you just can’t make any. Ask the world’s owner to change your role.
• Live editing isn’t on for this world. The page still works exactly as it always did — you just get the normal one-person-at-a-time behaviour, and the “edited elsewhere” message if somebody beats you to saving.

Tip

Live editing runs on the full wiki page. Open the same page in a side panel, the World Hub, or a hover preview and it stays in ordinary single-person mode — that’s deliberate, so the same page open twice in one window can’t fight itself.

Journals stay private

Journals are single-owner by design, so live editing doesn’t apply to them — there’s nobody to share one with. See Pages and folders for how journals differ from ordinary pages.

Comments are separate

Live editing is for writing the page together. If you want to discuss it — ask a question, flag a passage, argue about a date — that’s Comments, which work whether or not live editing is on.