Hover notes

Updated 2026-08-13

A hover note is a word of explanation that would clutter the page if it were always there. It appears when a reader points at the block, and gets out of the way again.

It is not a block you add. It is a property any block can have, so you never arrange one and it never takes space in the layout.

Give a block a note

Select the block.
In Properties, open Tooltip and switch it on.
Write the text. A heading is optional and works well for a term being defined.
Leave the placement alone unless you have a reason.

The text takes {{ }} tokens like any other text, so a note can read a value from the entry the page is bound to rather than repeating a number that will change. See Tables and rows and Variables and formulas.

While writing one, turn on the option to hold it open. Otherwise you are editing text you can only see by parking the pointer on the block.

Where it comes out

Two settings decide the placement, and they sound more alike than they are:

SideWhich edge the note leaves the block from.

AlignWhere it sits along that edge.

Pick a side and an alignment, and watch where the note ends up relative to the block.

Comes out ofSits at the

A blockThe note

Out of the bottom, lined up with the block’s centre. On a real page that is a preference rather than a promise: a note with no room below flips above, and one near the edge of the window slides along to stay on screen. The arrow follows the alignment, so it keeps pointing at the part of the block you lined it up with.

Alignment earns its keep on wide blocks. A centred note under a full-width row floats a long way from the word it explains; lining it up with the start puts it where the reader is looking.

What it decides for itself

Your choice is a preference, not an instruction to run off the screen. A note with no room below flips above, and one near the window edge slides along until it fits. The arrow follows, so it keeps pointing at its block.

That is why a note that looks fine in the editor still behaves at the bottom of a phone screen, and why placing one is a matter of taste rather than arithmetic.

When not to use one

If it matters, put it on the pageA note is invisible until somebody points at it, and a touch screen has no pointer at all.

One per screenfulA page where everything has a note is a page that flickers, and the notes stop being read.

Keep it to a sentenceA long note becomes a large bubble covering what the reader was looking at. If it needs a paragraph, it needs a page.

The design follows your wiki’s own colours, so a note looks like part of the page rather than a browser tooltip. To change that, it takes Custom CSS like anything else.