Topic Summary

There are times when you might want to summarise a group of topics - as below:

This is where Topic Summaries come in. Select two or more (sibling) topics and click the Topic Summary toolbar button or use the keyboard shortcut (CMD+SHIFT+G on Apple or CTRL+SHIFT+G on Windows) and it will create a ‘bracket’ and a summary topic positioned automatically in the centre of the summary bracket. The summary is actually associated with the first and last topic in the group. If you move the first and last topic around then it can encompass more topics. You can also drag other topics between the summarised topics.

To remove a summary, select all the topics that are summarised and then hit the Topic Summary toolbar button (or keyboard shortcut.)

To summarise more (or fewer) topics, ensure at least the first or last summarised topic is selected then hit the Topic Summary toolbar button (or keyboard shortcut.)

The bracket style can be set in the Style settings (as can the color.)

TopTip: Rather than summarise specific topics, you can summarise the whole branch. In the case above, you could select the ‘Plan’ topic and then the Topic Summary toolbar button and all topics on that branch will be summarised (even if you add additional topics.)

Gotchas: Some common ‘issues’:

• Only sibling topics on the same side can be summarised. If one of the summarised topics is rehomed or moved to a different side then the summary bracket will disappear and the summary topic/branch will revert to being a simple sibling branch.

• Summary topics cannot be moved (even in manual layout mode.) They will always position themselves in the centre of the bracket.