Formatting notes

Event notes and coach notes support light formatting. Use it to make the one line that matters actually stand out — families read these on a phone, in a lift line, in the cold.

The toolbar

Above every notes field you’ll find B, I, U and H, plus a Preview toggle.

• Select some text and click a button to wrap it.
• Click the same button again with the text still selected to unwrap it.
• Click a button with nothing selected and the cursor parks between the markers, ready for you to type.

Preview shows the note the way a family will see it.

What the buttons write

Formatting is stored as plain characters, not hidden markup, so you can also just type it:

You type	You get
**rock skis**	rock skis
_maybe_	maybe
__boots__	underlined
==wax by 8==	highlighted
***both***	bold italic
___both___	underlined italic
++boots++	underlined (same as __)

A formatted span can’t cross a blank line. That’s deliberate — a stray ** early in a note can’t accidentally bold the rest of it.

Underscores inside a word are left alone, so race_results_2026, fullathletelist_final.csv and URLs with underscores stay exactly as you typed them. You only get italics when the underscores sit at the edges of a word: _like this_.

Notes are capped at 4,000 characters — far more than anyone types on a phone, and about seven times the longest note currently in the system.

Where the formatting shows up

Notes don’t only appear on the family page. They go into the calendar feed, emails, the Telegram channel and phone notifications, and not all of those can carry formatting:

Where	Formatting
Family page, coach tool	All four
Email	All four
Apple Calendar, Outlook	All four
Telegram channel	Bold, italic, underline (highlight → bold)
Google Calendar	Plain text
Phone notification (push)	Plain text

The last two aren’t a limitation we chose — notification bodies and Google’s calendar description are plain text, full stop. Where formatting can’t be carried, the markers are removed cleanly, so nobody ever sees a stray **.

Write it so it works plain

Because two channels drop the formatting, don’t let meaning depend on it. “==Wax by 8==” reads fine either way; a note where the only indication of urgency is a highlight doesn’t.

Where you can use it

• Event notes — on the create/edit event form and on series create.
• Coach notes — on the day view, where you’ll most often write them.

Race-specific detail goes in Notes along with everything else — there is no separate race notes field to remember.