# Make Terra yours
> Choose light or dark, a theme and fonts, put your own buttons on the toolbar and your own keys on commands, tidy the sidebar, and give one note its own page.
Source: https://terramd.io/docs/make-terra-yours
You'll spend a lot of hours in Terra, so it should feel like your own desk: the colours you like, text at a size you can read late in the evening, the buttons you reach for most, and nothing you never use.
This guide follows one setup from start to finish. You're running the launch of a pocket field guide to the birds of the lower valley, often after dark, so you'll switch to a dark theme, make the text a little bigger, give the launch plan its own toolbar button, and set up a few keys. Every step stands on its own, so skip to the part you want.
> [!SUMMARY]
> - Switch between light and dark, and choose an interface style and a theme
> - Set the fonts, text sizes and zoom
> - Put the buttons you use on the toolbar, and your own keys on commands
> - Tune the editor and arrange the sidebar
> - Give one note its own page width and font
> [!BEFORE]
> - A [Library](https://terramd.io/docs/libraries) open in Terra. New to Terra? Start with the [Quickstart](https://terramd.io/docs/quickstart).
> - About 15 minutes.
## How it fits together
Almost everything here is in **Settings**: press ⌘ , or choose **Terra › Settings…**. Most changes apply the moment you make them, with no Save button.
Most settings belong to the Library that's open, so a work Library and a personal one can each look their own way. They're saved in the Library's hidden `.terra` folder and travel with it. A few things stay with this Mac instead:
| What | Applies to |
| --- | --- |
| **Light**, **Dark** or **System** | Every Library on this Mac |
| Interface style, theme, accent, app icon, fonts, sizes, toolbar and shortcuts | The Library that's open |
| How the sidebar is arranged, and your reading theme and text size | This Mac |
| A note's own page width and font | That note, wherever it goes |
## Step 1: Choose light or dark, and an interface style
The top of the Appearance pane sets the overall look.
1. Press ⌘ , and click **Appearance**.
2. Click **Light**, **Dark** or **System**. **System** follows macOS, so Terra turns dark when your Mac does.
3. Under **Interface style**, choose how controls are shaped. It changes their feel, not their colours:
- **Modern** (the default): curved, flat, organic.
- **System**: compact and minimal.
- **Glass**: fluid, with translucent surfaces. On Macs that support it, the toolbar becomes a native macOS toolbar.
4. Under **App icon**, pick **Orange**, **Midnight**, **Paper** or **Ink** for the icon in the Dock and the app switcher. Finder keeps showing the icon Terra was installed with.
To flip between light and dark without opening Settings, press ⇧ ⌘ L, or choose **View › Appearance › Toggle Light / Dark**.
## Step 2: Pick a theme and an accent
A theme sets every colour in the window. Terra comes with sixteen: Terra, Catppuccin, Gruvbox, GitHub, One, Ayu, Night Owl, Synthwave '84, Blade Runner 2049, Eldritch, Cobalt2, Citron, Pulse, Dracula, Monokai and Tokyo Night.
1. In **Appearance**, scroll to **Theme** and click a card. The window changes straight away.
2. A card that says **Light + Dark** follows your choice from step 1. A card that lists flavors has more than one version: right-click it and pick one. For the evening sessions, right-click **Tokyo Night** and choose **Moon**.
3. Under **Accent**, click a swatch to change the colour of highlights and selected items. Picking another theme resets the accent to that theme's own.
Some flavors are made for one scheme only. Tokyo Night's Moon is dark, so choosing it makes Terra dark whatever step 1 says.
> [!TIP] Make a theme of your own
> Click the **+** card after the themes. Name your theme, set its **Base**, **Crust**, **Text** and **Accent** colours for **Light** and **Dark**, add more with **Add flavor**, and click **Save**. Your themes appear under **Custom Themes**, where **⋯** offers **Duplicate**, **Rename**, **Edit** and **Delete**. Terra saves them as CSS files in your Library's `Themes` folder.
## Step 3: Set the fonts and sizes
Text you can read comfortably matters more than any colour.
1. In **Appearance**, scroll to **Fonts**. For **UI font** (the sidebar, toolbars and labels), **Body font** (what you write), **Heading font** (note titles) and **Monospace font** (code), type the name of a font installed on your Mac, as it appears in Font Book. Leave a field empty to use Terra's default.
2. Under **Display**, set the sizes with **−** and **+**:
| Setting | What it changes | Range |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **UI font size** | Everything except the text of your notes | 11 to 18 px, default 13 |
| **Body font size** | The text you write and read | 8 to 22 px, default 15 |
| **Zoom** | The whole window, like zooming a web page | 70 to 150%, default 100% |
For the late sessions, set **Body font size** to 17.
3. **Animations** controls movement: **Match system** follows your Mac's Reduce motion setting, **Full** keeps every animation, **Reduced** keeps fades but stops animated GIFs, and **Off** removes all animation.
4. **Note outline** chooses what appears beside a note when the pane has room: **Table of contents** (a list of its headings), **Minimap** (a small picture of the whole note) or **None**. ⇧ ⌘ O shows or hides it for now without changing the setting.
From anywhere in Terra, ⌘ = zooms in and ⌘ - zooms out, changing the same **Zoom** setting; ⌘ 0 sets it back to 100%.
## Step 4: Put your buttons on the toolbar
The toolbar starts with the buttons most people use. You can add any command to it, and also notes, databases and views such as Tasks or Calendar. A button that opens the launch plan saves you hunting for it.
1. Right-click any button in the toolbar and choose **Customize toolbar…**. (The **⋯** at the far right of the toolbar has it too, and so does **Settings › Toolbar**.) The **Toolbar** pane opens with a preview of your toolbar and, below it, the **Command library**.
2. In the **Command library**, type in the search field to find what you want, such as *Field guide launch plan*.
3. Drag it into the preview: into the left group, the right group, or onto the **⋯** to put it in the **More** menu.
4. To move or hide a button, drag it to a new place in the preview, or drag it off the toolbar. You can also right-click a button for **Move earlier**, **Move later**, **Leading**, **Trailing**, **More menu** and **Hidden**.
5. To rename a button or change its icon, right-click it in the preview and choose **Edit label and symbol…**. Type a **Label** and pick a **Symbol**.
6. Click **Apply** to keep your changes, or **Cancel** to throw them away. **Reset** puts back the toolbar Terra started with; click **Apply** after it.
In the preview, the layout buttons from **Split** to **2 × 2** show as one button with a number on it, **Pane layouts**. Click it to choose which layouts the toolbar offers.
## Step 5: Give commands your own keys
Any command can have keys, including ones that have none to start with, such as **Database drawer** or **AI conversations**.
1. In **Settings**, click **Hotkeys**. (**Help › Keyboard Shortcuts** goes straight there.)
2. Click the keys beside a command. They change to **Press keys…**.
3. Press the new keys, or Esc to back out.
Hover over a command to see **Reset to default** (the curved arrow) and **Unbind** (**×**). Terra doesn't warn you when two commands share keys, so pick ones that aren't taken. [Keyboard shortcuts](https://terramd.io/docs/keyboard-shortcuts) lists every default and covers the details.
## Step 6: Tune the editor
**Settings › Editor** holds the settings for writing:
- **Caret style**: the insertion point as a **Line**, a **Block** or an **Underline**. Turn off **Blink caret** for a steady one.
- **Reference preview lines**: how many lines of a note show when you point at a link to it, from 0 to 5.
- **Citation style**: how citations to your references are written.
- **Task statuses**: the checkbox marks your tasks can have, their names, and the board column each one goes in. See [Tasks](https://terramd.io/docs/tasks).
- **Sprouts**: the kinds of [Sprout](https://terramd.io/docs/sprouts) you can choose, each with its own name, icon and colour.
- **Version history**: turn it off to stop saving versions and hide **Versions** everywhere. See [Sync and back up](https://terramd.io/docs/sync-and-back-up).
The editor toolbar above a note can move too: drag the arrow at its right end to another edge of the pane, or click it to hide the toolbar until you need it again.
## Step 7: Arrange the sidebar
The sidebar remembers your arrangement on this Mac.
- **Reorder**: drag a row up or down, or drag a section by its name.
- **Collapse**: click a section's name to fold it. Right-click any section name for **Collapse all** and **Expand all**.
- **Pin to the rail**: right-click a view such as **Tasks**, or a database, and choose **Pin to rail**. Pinned rows stay one click away when the sidebar is hidden.
- **Change icon**: right-click a row and choose **Change icon**, then pick one, or choose **Default** to go back.
- **Hide built-ins you don't use**: right-click **Today**, **Links** or another built-in database and choose **Hide**. To bring it back, right-click **Databases** and choose it under **Hidden**.
- **Rename**: your own databases, saved views and folders have **Rename** on their right-click menu.
To change what the sidebar shows at the bottom, set a **Display name** and upload a logo in **Settings › General**, under **Library**. The display name replaces the folder's name in the sidebar; the folder itself isn't renamed.
## Step 8: Give one note its own page
Some notes read better wide, such as *Printer quotes* with its table, and some read better narrow. Each note can keep its own page width and font.
1. Open the note and click **Reader preferences**, the sliders at the bottom right of the note, beside **⋯**.
2. Turn on **Remember for this note**. From now on, the width and font you choose are saved with this note.
3. Use the arrows beside **Width** to choose **Narrow**, **Normal**, **Wide** or **Full width**. For the quotes, choose **Wide**.
4. Under **Font**, choose **Open Runde**, **EB Garamond** or **JetBrains Mono**.
Terra keeps the remembered width and font in the note's [sidecar](https://terramd.io/docs/glossary#sidecar), so they apply wherever the note opens. Turn **Remember for this note** off to go back to the usual page.
With it off, **Width** applies to every note until you close the window. **Font**, **Size**, **Theme** (**White**, **Sepia** or **Dark**) and the **Reader parameters**, such as **Line spacing**, **Justify text** and **Two columns**, shape how notes look in **Read** mode. Switch a note to **Read** with the button beside its title, or press ⌥ ⌘ E.
## Features you might have missed
### Switch off what you don't use
**Settings › Features** has a switch for **AI**, **Web viewer**, **References**, **Canvas**, **Graph**, **Queries** and **Terminal**, and under **Database views** for **Calendar**, **Map**, **Gallery**, **Kanban** and **Sheets**. A feature that's off disappears from places like the sidebar, the toolbar, the `/` menu and the command palette. Its files stay in your Library, and turning it back on brings everything back.
### Decide where dropped files go
**Settings › Files › Dropped files go to** is **Where I drop them** by default: the folder or database under the pointer, or else the one that's open. Choose **Always Inbox** to collect every dropped file in the Inbox instead.
### Choose what happens at launch
**Settings › General › Open at launch** reopens your last Library by default. Either of the other choices starts Terra on the **Open a library** screen instead. **Week starts** sets whether weeks in calendars and date groups start on **Monday** or **Sunday**.
### Drop caps for reading
**Settings › Appearance › Reading** adds a large first letter to the first paragraph of a note in **Read** mode, with **Drop-cap accent tint** to colour it.
## Troubleshooting
> [!NOTE]- A font I typed doesn't appear
> The name has to match a font installed on your Mac, as Font Book shows it. Check the spelling, or clear the field to go back to the default.
> [!NOTE]- My toolbar changes are gone
> Changes stick only after **Apply**; **Cancel**, or closing Settings, throws them away. The toolbar also belongs to the Library, so another Library keeps its own.
> [!NOTE]- The menu bar still shows the old keys
> The menu bar always shows a command's default keys, and those keys still work from there. Your new keys work in the window.
> [!NOTE]- Line height and Tab size in Settings › Editor don't change anything
> In this version those two settings have no effect. To give text more room, raise **Body font size** in **Appearance**, or **Line spacing** under **Reader parameters** for **Read** mode.
## What's next
- [Keyboard shortcuts](https://terramd.io/docs/keyboard-shortcuts): every default key, and how rebinding works.
- [Find your way around](https://terramd.io/docs/find-your-way-around): the parts of the window you've just been arranging.
- [Sprouts](https://terramd.io/docs/sprouts): make your own kinds of Sprout, with your own colours.
- [Read comfortably in the e-reader](https://terramd.io/docs/read-in-the-e-reader): themes and fonts for books and PDFs.