Set up a lead form

A lead form asks for an email or phone number before the document opens, or partway through it. Someone who would otherwise stay anonymous becomes a contact you can follow up with.

What you can do here

• Turn anonymous viewers into contacts. Collect an email address or phone number you can actually reach them on.
• Qualify before you send. Capture details before a proposal, white paper, or price list is read.
• Manage contacts alongside interest. See each contact next to their reading data and interest level.
• Collect phone numbers or email addresses. Either one identifies a person, so a phone-only form counts accurately.
• Stay in touch automatically. Mark an email field as required, and FeatPaper emails the document to whoever submits it.

What is a lead form?

A lead form is the panel a viewer fills in before reaching the document. It collects an email, a name, a phone number, or any field you define, and stores those answers next to that person’s reading data.

FeatPaper never sends the file itself. You share a link to the document, and saving a form turns on that document’s info-required link. Only people arriving on that link see the form.

• There is one form per document. You cannot attach different forms to different links.
• The form appears before the viewer moves past the page where the marker sits, so a marker at the front shows the form the moment the document opens.
• Answers are stored as the same person as their reading record, which is how views and submissions line up.

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Collect emails before someone views the file

Build a lead form and share the info-required link. Anyone opening that link has to complete the form before they can move past that point.

Link	Does the form appear?
Info-required link	Yes. Details first, then the document.
General share link	No. It opens straight away.
Per-recipient link	No. You already know who this is, so it never asks again.
AI-public link	No. This is the public link you post on a site or blog, and no form can be attached.

Only the info-required link makes someone fill in the form before the document opens. Use it for first contact, and use a per-recipient link for people you already know.

Saving a form, or opening the Share tab, issues the info-required link automatically. If a link leaks, Reissue link creates a fresh one, and the old address stops working from that moment.

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The lead form is available on every plan

You can build and use a lead form on every plan, Starter included. The old “Pro and above” restriction is gone.

Capability	Plan needed
Build the form, arrange fields, share the info-required link	Every plan
Read the collected contacts on screen	Every plan
Export contacts to CSV	Pro and above
Notion, Google Sheets, Zapier integrations	Business and above
External form integration with an API key	Business and above

On Starter, you can read per-person detail for 7 days after upload. Nothing is deleted, only hidden, so upgrading to Pro or above makes the older data readable again.

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The editor opens in two modes — lead form mode and motion mode

You build the lead form in the document editor, but that is not the same screen you use to lay videos and links over pages. The editor opens in one of two modes depending on how you got there. Arrive through a lead form button and the URL carries ?leadform=settings, which opens lead form mode: everything the form needs stays, and the motion controls disappear.

On screen	Lead form mode	Motion mode
Sidebar + Add Lead Form button (document with no form)	Shown	Hidden
Sidebar Lead Form marker (document with a form)	Shown	Hidden
The drop slots between pages that hold the marker	Shown	Hidden
Lead Form Settings panel	Opens from the marker or + Add Lead Form	Cannot be opened
Header motion type tabs VIDEO · GIF · EMBED · LINK · NAV · DOCS	Hidden	Shown
Header editing tip (lightbulb icon)	Hidden	Shown
First-run popup explaining motion	Never appears	Shown once
Sidebar page thumbnails	Shown	Shown
FeatPaper logo · current and total page · SAVE & EXIT	Shown	Shown

Three routes open lead form mode. All three land on the same screen.

From	What you click
Document > Share tab	Lead form settings › Open at the top of the Info-required link row’s share settings sheet
Document > Share tab	With no form saved yet, click the Info-required link row, then Lead form settings in the “Set up the form first” prompt
Document > Viewers tab > Contacts	Lead form settings on the “No lead form configured yet” empty state

The lead form marker is invisible in motion mode. Come in through Add video or link on the document’s Content tab and the sidebar shows page thumbnails only. The form is not gone, just hidden for that mode, and saving with SAVE & EXIT from motion mode leaves the form and its position untouched. To edit the form, come back through one of the three routes above. For the other direction, see Add motion effects.

Videos and links you already layered onto the document still render on the canvas in lead form mode, and clicking one selects and moves it. Only the entry point for adding new ones — the header motion type tabs — is missing, so take care not to drag a motion element while you work on the form.

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Build the form

Open the editor in lead form mode

On the document’s Share tab, open the share settings for the Info-required link and click Open on the Lead form settings row at the top. The other two routes in the table above land on the same screen.

Click + Add Lead Form

Above the page list on the left of the editor, click + Add Lead Form — the button exists in lead form mode only. A Lead Form marker is pinned to the front of the page list, and the settings panel opens on the right.

Choose what to collect

Write the intro line and add the fields you want. The center of the screen previews the form exactly as viewers will see it.

Position the marker

Drag the handle icon (⋮⋮) on the left of the marker to move it between pages. The form appears before the viewer moves to the page after the marker.

Save and exit

Click Save at the bottom of the panel, then SAVE & EXIT at the top right of the editor. Nothing takes effect until you click SAVE & EXIT. You will see “Lead form settings saved”, and the info-required link turns on.

If you changed anything in the share settings sheet, save it before you click Open. Open moves you to the editor without saving the sheet, so unsaved values can be lost.

Anywhere from the marker’s label to the pencil icon reopens the settings panel, and only the handle icon (⋮⋮) drags. The two used to be a single area, so clicking the label dragged the marker instead of opening the panel.

To put a form on a document shared through a space, configure it on that document’s Share tab. There is no space-level setting that applies to every document automatically.

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What the form settings panel contains

The panel opens with a line telling you to set up the form shown on the document. The center of the screen previews the form live as you edit.

The form settings panel with intro line, fields, auto-send, and agreements

Apply Space Lead Form

Apply Space Lead Form at the top of the panel pulls a form saved on the space into the current document. If the space holds several templates, pick one from the template chips. The first chip, Primary, is the default. Applying a template copies its configuration once, so editing the space template later leaves documents you already applied it to untouched. Any teammate can apply a template.

Edit Form Template is available to space admins only. For everyone else the button is disabled, and clicking it explains that only space admins can edit templates.

A space can hold several custom forms besides the default one. Custom forms you built in dashboard 1.0 are copied to the space during the automatic move to 2.0, so you can keep picking them from the template chips.

The first time you open the panel on a document with no form, it is already filled in. If the space has any template, the first (Primary) template loads automatically, including its title, fields, and required flags. If the space has no template saved, you get a built-in form with one required email field and auto-send on. Saving as-is sends that pre-filled form to viewers, so review it before you save.

Intro line

One line shown above the form. There is no separate description field.

Fields

Add adds a field and Reorder turns on drag sorting. Pick each field’s type from the dropdown on its left.

Field type	What it collects
Text	Free-form text such as a name or company.
Email	An email address.
Checkbox	Multiple selections.
Radio	A single selection; + adds an option and X removes one.

Select Required on the right of a field to make it mandatory. The X icon deletes the field.

Field setup with type, required, and the auto-send toggle

Editing or deleting a field never removes values you already collected. The contact list merges columns from the current form and from every field that appeared in past submissions.

Text, checkbox, and radio fields are keyed by their label. Two fields with the same label collapse into one column, and only the first matching value is shown. The stored data is intact. Give every field a distinct label.

Checkbox answers appear as Yes or No in the table, the CSV, and the integrations, in English regardless of your dashboard language.

Auto-send document to viewer’s email

This toggle unlocks as soon as at least one email field is marked Required. With it on, the document is emailed to the address someone submits, which makes it easy for them to come back later. Without a required email field the toggle is disabled and explains that you need at least one required email field.

An auto-send you already turned on is silently switched off and saved that way if you untick Required on the email field or delete it. After reorganizing fields, check this toggle again. To turn it back on, make an email field required again.

Agreements

Add creates an agreement item and Reorder sorts them. Pick a type on the left.

• Link takes a title plus an external URL, for example https://featpaper.com/privacy.
• Text takes a title plus the full text you type in.

The X icon removes an item.

Form language

The form’s system wording is stamped with your dashboard language when you create the form or apply a space template. Editing the contents of an existing form and saving does not restamp it. Field labels and the intro line are free text you wrote and are never translated automatically.

If a teammate on a different dashboard language applies a space template or creates a new form, the form language is restamped to theirs. Labels you already typed stay as they are, so viewers can see your labels next to another language’s system wording. Saving an existing form without applying a template leaves the language alone.

To reach several language groups, write the labels and intro line in the language you need, or create a separate document and link per language.

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Set the form position

Once a form exists, a Lead Form marker sits in the page list on the left of the editor when it is open in lead form mode (motion mode hides it). Grab the handle icon (⋮⋮) on its left and drag it between pages; the tooltip reads “Drag to move”. Blue dashed slots mark where you can drop it while you drag.

Viewers get the form before they move to the page after the marker. Put it between pages 3 and 4 and the form appears as they leave page 3. Put it at the very front and the form appears the moment the document opens.

The marker carries only the handle (move) and the pencil (open settings). Anywhere from the label to the pencil reopens the panel. After moving the marker you still need SAVE & EXIT for the change to take effect.

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How the info-required link relates to the other links

The form appears only to people arriving on the info-required link. The same document opened through any other link shows no form.

• General share link viewers open the document with no form.
• Per-recipient link viewers also open the document with no form, even while a form exists, because you already know who they are.
• AI-public links cannot carry a form at all, since they are public links meant for AI search.

Each link’s performance is tracked separately, so mixing an info-required link with other links still tells you which route produced a contact. For per-link settings see Share with a link.

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How one contact is counted — email, then phone number, then the first required value

One contact means one distinct person, not one submission. If the same person submits three times, that is still one contact.

How a person is identified depends on what your form collects.

With an email field, the email decides

Case and surrounding whitespace are ignored, so Kim@Corp.com and kim@corp.com are the same person.

With no email, the phone number decides

Only the digits are compared, so 010-1234-5678 and 01012345678 are the same person. A form that collects phone numbers and no email addresses is counted just as accurately.

With neither, the first required value decides

The value of the form’s first required field identifies the person.

Placeholder values such as unknown and anonymous are not counted as people. Contacts are counted against the document’s original version chain, so uploading a new version does not reset the contact count.

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Read and export the contacts you collected

Submissions land on the Contacts sub-tab of the document’s Viewers tab. Contacts is the default sub-tab, so it is what you see when the tab opens. Each row carries the interest grade, one column per form field, views, referrer, stay time, and the submission time.

• Same viewer grouping, on by default, collapses one person’s submissions into a single row and shows their latest. Nothing is deleted; only the display is grouped. A different email or phone number is never merged, even on the same computer.
• The Interest badge reflects reading activity, not whether someone submitted a form. Submitting and barely reading can read as Cold.
• Tables draw 200 rows at a time, and Show 200 more below adds another 200. Search, sorting, counts, and CSV always use the full set.
• The toolbar search box finds people by name, email, or field value, and Expand widens the table to full screen.
• Sending contacts to Notion, Google Sheets, or Zapier and downloading CSV happen from the Viewers tab toolbar. See document analytics.

Document-level integrations are Notion, Google Sheets, and Zapier, and both Notion and Google Sheets send only contacts who submitted the lead form. Document-level Slack sync was removed, so Slack now covers account-level view notifications under Settings > Connections.

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External form integration — keep the form you already use

If you already collect details through your own site form, Typeform, or Tally, keep that form and let FeatPaper collect the reading analytics. The entry point is External form integration › Connect in the Integrations section of the Share tab. It requires Business or above.

A viewer fills in your form

Your site form, Typeform, Tally: anything works. Ask for an email, since that is how FeatPaper identifies the person.

On submit, send it to FeatPaper

In Connect, use Generate key to issue an API key for this document, then post the email and fields to FeatPaper with that key on submit. Zapier or Make does this without code, and you can include up to 10 extra fields.

Send the viewer to the link you get back

FeatPaper returns a viewing link. It opens without the lead form, and the details plus the reading record land in your analytics.

API keys are issued per document, not per space. Regenerating or revoking one document’s key leaves external forms wired to other documents untouched.

• The key is shown in full exactly once: “Copy this key now — it’s shown only once.” After that you see a few leading characters and the creation date. If you miss it there is no way to see it again, so you have to issue a new one.
• Regenerate swaps in a new key and invalidates the old one immediately. Any server still holding the old key stops working until you update it.
• Revoke blocks the very next request, with no grace period, and cannot be undone.
• The row badge reads Connected or Not connected.

Viewers arriving on a link issued this way skip only the FeatPaper lead form. Views, stay time, interest grade, and the rest are recorded exactly as for any other visit, and they appear on the Contacts sub-tab too.

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What the viewer sees

Someone opening the document on the info-required link gets the form where the marker sits, and has to fill it in to continue past that point.

The lead form as a viewer sees it

The saved-mail pass (?lf=): someone who already submitted and comes back through the link in the auto-send email (/n/{key}/…?lf=…) opens the document without filling the form again. Put that link in your follow-up emails to keep return visits smooth.

Refreshing the same tab or reading on does not re-ask for the form. But without the ?lf= link, closing the browser entirely and coming back, opening in a private window, or switching device or browser means filling the form again.

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Ways to use this

A lead form does not stop at collecting an address. It carries into follow-up once you pair it with reading data, auto-send, and an integration. Three combinations people reach for most.

Replace the brochure request form and let leads pile up on their own

• Situation — you want the company overview on your website without bolting on a separate form tool, and you want the contact details of whoever reads it.
• Setup — save a form with an email field marked Required, publish the info-required link on the page, and connect Sheets (Google Sheets, or Notion) from the Viewers tab toolbar (Business and above).
• What you get — nobody reads the deck without leaving an address, and realtime sync writes every address into the spreadsheet. There is no second tool to run alongside the document.

Work out who to call first after a white paper goes out

• Situation — the material went out across several channels, the contacts came in, and the list gives you no order to work through.
• Setup — open Viewers > Contacts, sort on the Interest column, and pull a CSV with Download N when you need it elsewhere (Pro and above).
• What you get — because submissions and reading records are stored as the same person, each email sits next to its view count, stay time, and interest grade. You can separate the people who submitted and never read from the ones who read to the end, and start with Hot.

Keep your existing form and merge only the analytics

• Situation — marketing already runs the intake form, and changing where people submit is not on the table.
• Setup — on the Share tab, open Integrations > External form integration > Connect and issue an API key for this document, then post the email and the fields on submit (Business and above; Zapier or Make does this without code).
• What you get — people fill in the form they always did and open the document straight from the link that comes back, while their details and reading record land on the Contacts sub-tab all the same.

Collect leads in a form tool and email the file as an attachment, and “who asked for it” and “who actually read it” end up in two places that never meet. A lead form stores the submission and the reading record as the same person, so a single row tells you how far that contact got.

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Button and shortcut reference

Control	Where	What it does
Lead form settings › Open	Top of the info-required link’s share settings sheet	Opens the editor in lead form mode (?leadform=settings) — save the sheet first.
Lead form settings	”Set up the form first” prompt, shown when you click the info-required link row with no form saved	Opens the same lead form mode.
Lead form settings	”No lead form configured yet” empty state on Viewers tab > Contacts	Opens the same lead form mode.
+ Add Lead Form	Above the page list in the editor (lead form mode only)	Pins the marker to the front and opens the settings panel.
Marker handle (⋮⋮)	Page list in the editor (lead form mode only)	Drags the marker to another position in the page list.
Marker label to pencil icon	Page list in the editor (lead form mode only)	Reopens the settings panel from anywhere in this area.
Apply Space Lead Form	Top of the settings panel	Copies a space template into this document once.
Edit Form Template	Top of the settings panel	Manages the space templates themselves, space admins only.
Add / Reorder	Fields and agreements	Adds an item or turns on drag sorting.
Required checkbox	Right of each field	Makes that field mandatory.
Auto-send document to viewer’s email	Below the fields	Emails the document to whoever submits, and needs a required email field.
Save	Bottom of the settings panel	Saves the panel’s configuration.
SAVE & EXIT	Top right of the editor	Commits everything, including the form, and leaves the editor.
Connect	Share tab, Integrations, External form integration	Opens the external form dialog, Business and above.
Generate key / Regenerate / Revoke	External form dialog	Issues, replaces, or kills this document’s API key.
Reissue link	Info-required link row	Issues a fresh link; the old address stops working.
Contacts sub-tab	Document, Viewers tab	Shows only people who submitted the form, the default sub-tab.

Shortcut: Open My Documents

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Frequently asked questions

How do I collect emails before someone views the file?

Build a lead form and share the document’s info-required link. Anyone opening that link has to complete the form before the document appears. Create the form in the editor with + Add Lead Form, and saving it turns the info-required link on. People arriving on a general share link or a per-recipient link never see the form.

My lead form tab is missing. Where do I set this up now?

The standalone tab is gone. You turn the form on and edit it from the Info-required link on the document’s Share tab, and you read submissions on the Contacts sub-tab of the Viewers tab.

I opened the lead form settings and the video and GIF tabs are gone.

That is expected. The editor splits into lead form mode and motion mode depending on how you entered. A lead form button opens it with ?leadform=settings in the URL, which is lead form mode, and that hides the header’s VIDEO · GIF · EMBED · LINK · NAV · DOCS tabs along with the editing tip lightbulb. To add a video or a link, leave with SAVE & EXIT and come back through Add video or link on the document’s Content tab. Add motion effects covers that side.

I opened the editor through Add video or link and the lead form marker is missing.

You are in motion mode. That mode hides the + Add Lead Form button, the Lead Form marker, and the drop slots between pages, leaving page thumbnails only. Nothing was deleted, and saving with SAVE & EXIT from motion mode keeps the form and its position exactly as they were. To see the marker again, go to the Share tab, open the Info-required link row’s share settings, and click Lead form settings › Open.

What is the info-required link, and how is it different from the general share link?

Saving a form turns on that document’s info-required link, and only people arriving on it see the form. General share link viewers open the document straight away. Before you save a form the row reads “Set up the form to activate”, and clicking it opens a “Set up the form first” prompt.

Which plan do I need for a lead form?

Every plan, Starter included. The old “Pro and above” restriction is gone. What is gated: external form integration needs Business or above, CSV export needs Pro or above, and Notion, Google Sheets, and Zapier integrations need Business or above.

Can I collect phone numbers instead of email addresses?

Yes, and the count stays accurate. Identity resolves in order: email, then phone number, then the first required value. With no email field the phone number identifies the person, and only the digits are compared, so 010-1234-5678 and 01012345678 are the same person.

The same person submitted several times. Does that count as several contacts?

No. One contact is one distinct person, not one submission. The same email, ignoring case and whitespace, or the same phone number, digits only, is one contact however many times they submit. Placeholder values like unknown and anonymous are not counted as people.

Can I delete the form I added?

There is currently no button on screen for deleting a form. The marker in the editor offers only the handle (move) and the pencil (open settings). To share without asking for details, use a general share link or a per-recipient link instead, since neither shows the form. To change only what you collect, delete the fields in the settings panel and save.

How do I share without the form?

Use the general share link, which opens with no form. To send to one named person and still see whether they opened it, use a per-recipient link. Per-recipient viewers get no form even while a form exists on the document.

I saved the form but the web viewer doesn't show it.

Save in the panel is not enough. You also need SAVE & EXIT at the top right of the editor. When it goes through you will see “Lead form settings saved”.

I changed the share settings, clicked Open, and lost the change.

Open does not save the sheet; it navigates to the editor. Save the share settings sheet first, then click Open.

I can't drag the marker.

Only the handle icon (⋮⋮) on the left is the drag area. Clicking the label or the pencil opens the settings panel. They were split apart because the whole card used to be draggable, so clicking the label never opened the settings.

The settings panel is pre-filled the first time. Can I just save it?

Check it first. If the space has templates, the first (Primary) template loads automatically. With no template you get a built-in form with a required email field and auto-send on. Saving as-is sends exactly that to viewers.

Can the document be emailed to whoever submits the form?

Yes. With at least one email field marked Required, you can turn on Auto-send document to viewer’s email. One catch: if you later untick Required on that field or delete it, the toggle is silently switched off and saved that way. Re-check it after reorganizing fields.

Where do I read the contacts, and how do I export them?

Read them on the Contacts sub-tab of the Viewers tab, which is the default sub-tab. Notion, Google Sheets, and Zapier delivery and CSV download both live in that tab’s toolbar. CSV needs Pro or above and the integrations need Business or above. See document analytics.

Can I keep using my own site form or Typeform?

Yes. In the Share tab’s Integrations › Connect, issue an API key for this document and post the email and fields with that key when your form is submitted. FeatPaper returns a viewing link that opens without the lead form, and the reading data is still recorded. Zapier or Make handles the wiring without code. Requires Business or above.

Where do I get an API key?

Open the document’s Share tab and scroll past the link list to the Integrations section below the divider. Click the External form integration row — the Connect button on its right does the same — and the dialog opens. Issue the key with Generate key in the API key area. It needs Business or above, and the key is per document, not an account-level setting. It is shown only once, so copy it right away.

Is the external form API key per document? When does regenerating or revoking take effect?

Keys are issued per document. Changing or revoking one leaves other documents’ external forms alone. Regenerate invalidates the old key immediately, and Revoke blocks the next request with no grace period. Neither can be undone, so you would need a new key. The key itself is shown in full only once, right after it is issued.

Does someone who already submitted have to fill it in again?

It depends. Refreshing the same tab or reading on does not re-ask. Coming back through the saved-mail link (?lf=) in the auto-send email opens the document directly. Without that link, closing the browser entirely, using a private window, or switching device or browser means filling it in again.

If I edit or delete a field, do I lose the values already collected?

No. Collected values stay in the contact list and the CSV. The list merges columns from the current form and from every field that ever appeared in a submission.

What happens if two fields share a label?

They collapse into one column. Text, checkbox, and radio fields are keyed by label, so two fields called “Department” show only the first matching value and hide the rest. The stored data is intact, but it looks lost on screen, so give each field a distinct label.

Checkbox answers show as Yes/No in English.

That is intentional. Checkbox values are normalized to Yes or No in the table, the CSV, and the integrations, in English regardless of dashboard language.

Is a form written in one language translated for viewers?

No. Field labels and the intro line are free text you wrote, so they are not translated to a viewer’s language. To reach several languages, write the labels in the language you need, or create a separate document and link per language.

If I edit a space template, do documents that already use it change?

No. Applying a template copies its configuration once, so later edits to the template leave existing documents alone. A space can hold several custom forms to pick from, and editing the template itself, via Edit Form Template, is limited to space admins.

What happens to the custom forms I built in dashboard 1.0?

They are copied to the space during the automatic move to 2.0. After the move you can still pick them from the template chips under Apply Space Lead Form and apply them to a document.

Someone gave me their email but shows as Cold. Is that right?

Yes. The interest grade comes from reading activity, not from submitting a form. Submitting and then barely reading, with no return visit, reads as Cold.

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Key points

• Lead forms work on every plan, and saving one turns on the document’s info-required link.
• Build the form in the editor’s lead form mode (Share tab > info-required link > Lead form settings › Open) with + Add Lead Form. The motion mode you reach through Add video or link on the Content tab shows no form marker.
• Move the marker by dragging the handle (⋮⋮), and commit both the contents and the position with SAVE & EXIT.
• One contact is one person. Identity resolves email, then phone number, then the first required value, so phone-only forms count accurately.
• Only the info-required link shows the form. General share links, per-recipient links, and AI-public links open straight through.
• External form integration needs Business or above, uses a per-document API key, and shows the key in full only once.
• There is currently no button for deleting a form. To collect nothing, share through a different link.

Learn more

See who read your document

Read your contacts next to interest grades and referrers, then export or sync them.

Share with a link

How the info-required link differs from the others, and what each link’s settings do.

Connections

Manage Slack view notifications and your Notion and Google Sheets accounts.

Add motion effects

The same editor in motion mode — how to add videos and links, and how the two modes differ.