# Library & workspace

Papiers has three main views: **Home**, the **Library**, and the **Workspace**. Move between them depending on whether you want to ask, find, or read.

## Home

Home is where you start when you don’t have a particular document in mind.

Ask a question and Papiers can search broadly across your library. It uses the same chat and tools as the Workspace; the difference is that there is no active document yet.

Click a source in the answer and Papiers opens it in the Workspace beside the same conversation.

## Your library

The Library is everything you’ve saved to Papiers.

Use the filters and search field to find documents by title, author, type, tag, or date. Click anything to open it in the Workspace.

When you want to search inside what you’ve read or ask a question across it, press `⌘⇧P`. It opens the same search and chat from Home without making you leave what you’re doing.

## Your workspace

The Workspace brings your conversations and documents together.

The sidebar sits on the left. Next to it, the chat pane holds your conversations in tabs. Documents open to the right, where you can keep several open and arrange them side by side.

A conversation here has the same tools as one started from Home. The difference is that Papiers knows which document is active, so what you’re reading provides a natural starting point for the conversation.

Press `⌘P` to open **Quick Open**. Your recent documents appear immediately, or start typing to find something in your Library and open it without leaving the Workspace.

## Your questions are anchored to the source

Select a passage while you read and it becomes context for your next message. The composer becomes active automatically, so you can start typing without breaking your flow.

Hold `Shift` while selecting to add more passages. A single question can draw on several parts of a document, or passages from documents you have open side by side.

When you send the message, Papiers anchors your question to the passages that prompted it. Come back later and you can see what you asked where you asked it.

If you’re reading a document in **focus mode**, select a passage and click **Chat** to return to the Workspace with that passage already attached.

### Ask about anything on the page

For a figure, table, diagram, or any other visual part of a PDF, press `⌘⇧S` or use **Screenshot Capture**, then drag over the region you want to ask about.

Papiers keeps the capture tied to its exact location in the PDF. The agent can use where it appears in the document, including the surrounding section and related caption, when answering your question.

### Equations stay equations

Select an equation in a PDF and Papiers recovers the underlying LaTeX instead of passing along the broken glyphs you often get when copying math from a PDF.

You can immediately ask the model to explain it, derive it, compare it with another equation, or use it in a longer question.

## Work across documents

Open several documents at once or arrange them side by side when you want to compare them.

Passages from different documents can become context for the same conversation. Hold `Shift` as you select across them, or type `@` in Chat to bring another document or note into the conversation.

## Focus on one thing

**Focus mode** lets the active chat or document fill the window.

Use it when you want an uninterrupted conversation or a clean reading view. Exit focus mode and everything returns exactly where it was in the Workspace.

## Get anywhere quickly

- `⌘P` opens **Quick Open** to find a document.
- `⌘⇧P` opens Home search from wherever you are.
- `⌘⇧L` switches between the Library and Workspace.

Source: https://wiki.papiers.ai/docs/workspace