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The page outline and navigating long lessons

Find your way around a long lesson with a floating outline and a page sidebar.

Written by Kat Morgan

Once a lesson grows beyond a screen or two, jumping around becomes the bottleneck. The New editor gives you two ways to navigate quickly.

The page sidebar

The left sidebar lists every page in the lesson. Click a page to switch to it. Drag pages to reorder. Double-click a title to rename. The + at the bottom of the sidebar adds a new page.

The Pages sidebar showing a lesson with the first page selected

The sidebar is always visible while you edit. Collapse it with the toggle at the top if you want more room.

The Pages sidebar with two pages in the lesson

The floating outline

The right side of the editor shows a floating outline of the current page. Every heading you add (H1 to H4) appears in the outline as a clickable link. Click any heading to jump straight there.

The floating outline showing headings in the current lesson page

The outline only shows up when there's enough room and enough content to make it useful, so a short page won't have one. Headings appear in the outline in real time as you add them.

Tips for navigable lessons

  • Use H1 for the page title (one per page).

  • Use H2 for major sections within the page.

  • Use H3 and H4 sparingly. Three levels deep is usually plenty.

  • Split long lessons across multiple pages rather than one giant page with twenty headings.

What students see

Students don't see the editor outline, but the structure you build with headings carries through to their view. Clear headings make the lesson easier for everyone, you included when you come back to edit it next term.

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