Roam Research Shortcuts - A Lightweight Guide

Roam relies heavily on daily notes. Getting back to your current daily note is the first shortcut you should memorize.

From any page, press Ctrl + Shift + d to jump back to today's page. In the screen capture below, we're jumping from a page about Planets back to our daily notes page.

The search bar helps you navigate to pages efficiently.

Use ⌘ + u and type the first few letters of the page you're looking for. When you see the page you want, arrow or mouse down and Click / Enter to open it.

You can also create a new page from the search bar by typing in the name of the new page and pressing Enter.

Double brackets create links to other pages. These bidirectional links are what make Roam special. In effect, they allow you to build your own wiki.

If you create a bracket link to a page that doesn't exist, Roam creates a new page for you automatically.

The example below shows us creating a bracket link to the Planets page.

Parentheses links are similar to the bracket links above, except they link to specific blocks (i.e., lines) instead of whole pages.

The example below shows us creating a link to the Pluto block.

Inline commands are a fast way to add new pages, formatted content, and other tools to your Roam pages as you type. Roam provides a number of unique tools from the inline command menu, including pomodoro timers, date selectors, sliders, kanban boards, queries, and encrypted text.

The example below scrolls through all the inline command options before creating a page reference. Creating a page reference this way is the same as creating a page reference with brackets (See, [[page link]] above).

Open pages with the mouse using Left Click.

Hold Shift while clicking to open links in a sidebar.

Reveal Roam's context menu by Right Clicking on anything on the page.

To open pages without the mouse, press Ctrl + o while your cursor is over a link.

Open pages in the sidebar without the mouse using Ctrl + Shift + o while your cursor is over a link.

Pressing Ctrl + c and then Ctrl + b toggles the visibility of brackets around links. The links work the same whether the brackets are displayed or not.

Pressing Ctrl + c and then Ctrl + s toggles the icon showing whether you edited a block.

Navigate around a page using keyboard arrows or the mouse.

Expand or collapse the contents of any block.

Add a new block below the current block.

Add a line to a block without creating a new block.

Add a checkbox anywhere.

Indent and unindent blocks.

Move the current block up or down.

Undo or redo your previous actions.

Zoom in and out of specific blocks for more or less focused viewing.

Select blocks above and below by holding Shift while moving up and down.

Select all blocks on a page.

Format header font.

• ⌘ + Alt + 1 Large Header
• ⌘ + Alt + 2 Medium Header
• ⌘ + Alt + 3 Small Header
• ⌘ + Alt + 0 Regular Font

Toggle checkboxes between checked / unchecked.

Bold the selected text.

Italicize the selected text.

Turn the selected text into a link.

Drag a block reference with link. (Thanks, Eugene Yan)

Strikethrough the selected text.

Highlight the selected text.

Use Markdown to make bold text.

Use Markdown to make italicized text.

Use Markdown to make strikethrough text.

Use Markdown to make highlighted text.

Use Markdown to apply Latex formatting.

Use Markdown to format inline code.

Use Markdown to format code blocks.

Use Markdown to create links.

Use Markdown to insert images.

Create a new version of a block.

Expand all versions of a block into separate blocks.

Cycle through block versions.