An article begins with one clear promise to the reader. Its title and focused summary introduce the idea in feeds, while an optional long-form body gives you room to explain, illustrate, and structure it. You write both on a page that stays close to the finished reading experience, so you can judge the result while you work.
Start With the Destination
Every new article begins as a private draft. If you start from a space or activity, that location becomes the article's home. If you start from the main feed, choose one of your joined spaces before the draft opens.
The destination is more than a filing choice. It determines where the published post appears, which area supplies its context, and who can open protected content. You also need permission to create posts there. A space can therefore appear in your joined list without being available as a publishing destination for your role.
Choose the joined space that should own the article before the draft opens.
Your unfinished work stays out of the ordinary published feed. Open Draft Articles & Posts from the feed to return to drafts that belong to you.
Build the Feed Introduction First
The title is the article's visible label across its reading page, feed card, previews, and other discovery surfaces. Make it specific enough to identify the subject without forcing the summary to repeat it. The current title limit is 300 characters.
Below the title, choose one summary format. This is the content people encounter in the feed and again at the top of the article page. It is deliberately one focused unit, not a collection of separate cards or an automatically clipped opening paragraph.
Text summaries and captions currently allow up to 500 characters. A selected image summary needs media, a link summary needs a usable URL, and a poll needs authored option text. Placeholder poll choices do not count as finished content.
You can change the selected format while editing. Visual Space keeps the other format's current session content available if you switch back, but only the selected summary is publishable. Review the visible summary before publishing, especially after trying several formats.
The highlighted summary type is the one readers will encounter in the feed.
For a closer comparison, see Choose an Article Summary.
Decide Whether the Idea Needs a Body
A title and valid summary can stand on their own as a short post-style article. When readers need supporting reasoning, examples, or a reference they can return to, choose Expand To Article to add the long-form body.
The body is one continuous reading flow. Its formatting tools can help you:
Headings are especially valuable in longer work because they also give readers a structure they can scan and use for navigation. The current body limit is 30,000 characters.
On the web, you can choose body images, paste image files into the focused body, or drag them onto it. Upload feedback appears while files are being prepared, and the space's upload-size limit still applies. Removing an image from the body changes the article but does not delete the corresponding uploaded file from Documents.
Rich paste can preserve supported headings, lists, links, and tables from sources such as web pages, office documents, Markdown, and rectangular spreadsheet selections. Conversion depends on the source shape, so inspect complex pasted material before relying on it. A recognized table becomes an editable article table instead of a flattened image.
Body formatting stays directly above the long-form content you are shaping.
Write and Format an Article covers the body tools as a complete authoring journey.
Follow the Save Feedback
The title, summary fields, and body save independently as you edit. Small status indicators appear over the field that owns the change:
The editor keeps your latest local edit visible when a save fails; it does not replace it with older confirmed content. Treat the retry control as consequential. Publishing waits for queued edits and active saves to finish, and it stops if an autosave is still failed. This prevents an article from becoming public with content that only appeared saved on your screen.
If you are about to leave after a substantial change, watch for the saved check or resolve any visible failure first. That gives you a clear checkpoint even though the editor also flushes pending work as it closes.
Validation Stays Quiet Until It Matters
An empty draft is allowed to feel like a blank page. Visual Space does not cover it with required-field errors while you are still deciding what to write, and the Publish action remains available.
Validation becomes visible after you try to publish. A standard article needs:
Correct the visible field message, then publish again. You do not need to invent keywords or a second short label; the title is the author-provided label used by the current article flow.
What Publishing Changes
Publishing ends the private-draft state and releases the article and its feed post together. The feed post uses the title and summary you crafted, while opening it reveals the same introduction followed by the body when one exists.
Publishing carries the chosen title and summary into the destination feed.
The destination's access rules continue to apply after publication. Work in a protected area does not become public merely because it now appears in a feed available to that area's members. A public-area article can be readable more broadly, while editing still requires the appropriate access.
Publishing is not a second copy operation. Later edits to the title or summary continue to update the linked feed-facing presentation. For how that presentation behaves in discovery surfaces, see Posts and Feeds.
Editing and Removal Boundaries
For an ordinary article, its author can continue editing after publication. Articles that represent another managed space feature can follow that feature's editing permission instead. If the editing controls are absent, being able to read the article does not by itself grant permission to change it.
Removing the long-form body and deleting the whole article are different actions:
The body control keeps the article shell; the article menu's Delete action removes the linked article and feed post.
Draft publication has its own permission check. Being allowed to edit a specialized article does not necessarily mean you can publish its draft. When the Publish control is absent, return to the article's owning area or ask someone with post-creation permission to complete that step.
Common Questions
Can I publish without a long-form body?
Yes. A valid title and one usable summary are enough for a concise article. Add a body only when the reader benefits from more depth.
Why did errors appear only after I selected Publish?
Draft validation is intentionally quiet until the first publication attempt. Once you try to publish, missing required content and exceeded limits appear near the relevant fields or publication controls.
What should I do when a save fails?
Use Retry saving on the affected field. Keep the latest content in place, confirm the saved check appears, and then publish again.
Can I use more than one summary format in the same post?
No. The current authoring flow publishes one text, image, link, or poll summary. Use the body when you need several kinds of supporting content.
Will changing the title create a separate feed post?
No. The article and post are connected views of the same published item. Title and summary edits remain reflected in the feed presentation.
Does deleting the body delete the article?
No. It removes the long-form portion after confirmation. The title, summary, and article remain unless you delete the entire article separately.