Document Variables

Document Variables are placeholders you drop into your writing that Atlas fills in automatically — a document's title, its author, the date you created it, the date you export it, and more. Type them once and they keep themselves current, so a heading or a title page never drifts out of sync with the document it describes.

Inserting a Variable

Type {{ anywhere in the editor to open the variable picker. A short list of the available variables appears, each with a one-line description. Keep typing to filter, use the up/down arrows to move through the list, and press Return to insert the highlighted one. Escape closes the picker without inserting.

You can also insert a variable from the menu:

Mac — Editor > Variables, then pick a variable.
iPad (with a hardware keyboard) — the same Editor > Variables menu.
iPhone and iPad — open the editor's More (…) menu and choose Variables.

The Variables You Can Use

Variable	Fills in	Stays live?
Title	The document's title	Live
Author	The author name from Project Settings	Live
Project	The name of the parent project	Live
Date modified	The date the document was last changed	Live
Date exported	The date you export the document	Live (at export)
Date created	The date the document was created	Frozen on insert
Time created	The time the document was created	Frozen on insert

Live vs. Frozen

The difference between the two groups is the whole point of variables, so it's worth understanding.

Live variables stay connected to their source. A Title variable updates the moment you rename the document; an Author variable changes if you update the project author. They stay as variables in your document and resolve to text only when you export.

Frozen variables — Date created and Time created — capture a value the instant you insert them and become plain text right away. They're a snapshot of "now," so they never change afterward, even if you move or edit the document later.

Date exported is a special case

Date exported is live, but its value only exists at export time — there's no "export date" while you're still writing. In the editor it shows as a labeled placeholder, and it resolves to the real date when you export.

Formatting Dates and Times

Every date and time variable carries its own format, so you control exactly how it reads. Select a date variable and open its format editor to choose a style:

Date — None, Short (7/16/26), Medium (Jul 16, 2026), Long (July 16, 2026), Full (Thursday, July 16, 2026), ISO (2026-07-16), Abbreviated (Thu, Jul 16), or Custom.
Time — None, 24-Hour (14:30), 24-Hour with Seconds (14:30:05), 12-Hour (2:30 PM), or 12-Hour with Seconds (2:30:05 PM).

Choosing Custom reveals a Custom Format field where you write your own pattern, with a Tokens cheat-sheet below listing the pieces you can use (YYYY, MMMM, DD, dddd, HH, mm, and so on), each with a live example. A preview at the bottom shows your format applied to the current date so you can see the result as you build it.

Tip

In a custom pattern, letters are replaced with parts of the date. To keep literal text, wrap it in single quotes — for example, 'Chapter drafted' MMMM D renders as "Chapter drafted July 16".

Working with Variable Pills

A live variable sits inline as plain text while you write, then shows itself as a colored pill when you select it, so you can tell a variable apart from ordinary text. Right-click (Mac) or long-press (iPhone and iPad) a variable for two actions:

Convert to Text — replaces the variable with its current value as ordinary text, breaking the live connection. Useful when you want to freeze a value in place. (This is unavailable for variables that have no current value yet, such as Date exported.)
Copy Document Variable — copies the variable itself (not its resolved value), so you can paste the same live token elsewhere.

Variables in Templates

Variables shine in templates. The template editor supports the same {{ picker and the same set of variables — but inside a template, nothing freezes. Even Date created and Time created stay as live tokens while you're building the template.

They resolve only when the template is applied to a real document: at that point the frozen variables capture the new document's creation date and time, and the live ones stay live. This is what lets a single template stamp each new document with its own correct dates.

How Variables Export

When you export, every variable resolves to plain text in the finished file — a reader never sees {{title}}, only the title itself. This applies to every format. Markdown export keeps live variables as {{…}} tokens instead, so a document you export and re-import stays dynamic.

If you type a variable Atlas doesn't recognize (a misspelled name, say), it isn't treated as a variable: its {{ }} markers stay visible in a distinct color as a hint, it behaves like ordinary editable text, and it's left as-is when you export.