Collaboration & Comments

This guide walks you through leaving comments, replying to feedback, and resolving conversations on documents and other artifacts — so your team can work together without leaving Obvious.

If you've used comments in Google Docs, this works the same way.

On a document:

Highlight the text you want to comment on.
Click the comment icon that appears in the toolbar. A composer opens at your selection.
Type your comment and press Send. The highlighted text gets a visual mark, and your comment appears in the sidebar.

On a workbook, presentation, or other artifact:

Open the artifact and click the Comments icon in the toolbar.
The comments sidebar opens with a composer ready. Type your comment and press Send.

Comments on non-document artifacts apply to the whole artifact rather than a specific text selection.

Tip: You can also open the comments sidebar from the project level — without any artifact open — to see every conversation across your project in one place.

Reply to a Comment

Click a comment thread in the sidebar or click the highlighted text in a document.
The thread expands to show the full conversation. Type your reply in the composer at the bottom.
Press Send. Your reply appears in the thread and teammates get notified.

@Mention a Teammate

Type @ in the comment composer to mention a teammate. A list of project members appears — select a name to notify them directly. Mentioned teammates receive a notification and can click through to the exact comment.

Add Emoji Reactions

Click the smiley face icon on any comment to add an emoji reaction. Click an existing reaction to add yours to the count. Click your own reaction again to remove it.

Reactions work on any comment in a thread — both in the sidebar and in floating comments alongside the document.

Resolve a Thread

When a conversation is done, click the resolve button on the thread. The thread moves from the For you tab to the Resolved tab in the sidebar. The text highlight in the document updates to reflect the resolved state.

Changed your mind? Open the Resolved tab, find the thread, and click unresolve to reopen it.

Edit or Delete Comments

Click the ⋯ menu on your own comment to edit or delete it. Editing replaces the comment text in place. Deleting removes the comment from the thread. You can only edit or delete comments you wrote.

To delete an entire thread, use the ⋯ menu on the thread itself.

Every comment thread has a shareable link. Click Copy link from the thread's ⋯ menu. When someone opens the link, Obvious navigates directly to the artifact and scrolls to the highlighted text.

Next Steps

Writing with Markdown — Format your documents before sharing them for feedback.
Sharing & Permissions — Control who can view, comment, and edit your artifacts.
Notifications — Manage how you receive updates on comments and mentions.