Notes, links and scans

Not everything that belongs in a data room starts as a file. A call summary, a press article, a signed paper page: the deal team can add each of these straight into a room folder, where it becomes a document like any other. It is versioned, searchable once it has been read, and visible to exactly the people the folder allows.

Where to find it

Open a data room as a member of the deal team. Next to Upload is a ▾ button that lists the other ways to add to the room: Write a note and Save a link. On a narrow screen, such as a phone, the button reads Add and opens a sheet with every option, including Upload files.

Scan document appears only on a device with a touch screen and a camera, where it is the first option. A desktop browser does not offer it, however narrow its window. Investors never see any of these controls.

Before you save: "Visible to"

Each of these opens a window with a Save to folder picker and a Visible to line underneath. The line is worked out for the folder you pick, before you save:

• An open folder reads "All investors in this room, now and later", highlighted. That is the folder's rule, not a count of who is in the room today: an investor invited next month will see the document too.
• A restricted folder shows how many investors have been granted it, and only those investors will see the document.
• A folder you cannot add to says so, and Save stays disabled until you pick another.

The document takes the folder's visibility. To change who sees it later, change the folder's access or move the document. See Sharing and access.

Write a note

A note is a short document written in markdown, with an optional title. With no title, the note is named after its first line. Notes have a size limit, and a counter under the text shows how much of it you have used. A note that is too long can be uploaded as a file instead.

To change a note, open it and choose Edit. Saving makes a new version, and the earlier versions stay in the file's history. If someone else saved a newer version while you were editing, yours is not saved: your text stays in the window so you can copy it, then reload to see theirs.

A note you write here is a document in the folder. It is not the same as the Notes thread beside a document in the viewer, which holds comments about that one document.

Save a link

Paste a web address. The page is saved as a PDF, with its address and the time it was captured on every page, and named after the page's title (or its site, when the page has none).

• A link to a PDF is saved as that PDF, unchanged.
• A page that cannot be captured (it needs a login, refuses the request, does not load, or is a file too large to keep) is saved as a link card: a one-page PDF with the page's title (or its site), the link, when it was tried and why it is a card, so the reference is still in the room.
• Some links are refused before anything is saved: an address containing a user name and password, a link to a private or internal network address, and one that is too long.

Saving takes a little while. You can keep working; the upload tray shows when the link is saved, or saved as a card. There is a limit on how many links one person can save in an hour.

Scan document

On a phone or tablet, Scan document opens the camera for each page. Take a photo of every page in order. You can move a page up or down, remove it, or take it again, and each page uploads as soon as it is taken. Press Done when every page is in. The pages are saved together as one PDF, under the name you give it.

The scan is read so that its text can be searched. Text in Latin script is read reliably; text in other scripts, such as Arabic, may not be searchable.

Where to go next

• Data rooms — the room and folder model these documents live in.
• Sharing and access — how folder restriction and grants decide who sees a document.
• File versioning and auditability — how a note's versions and every document's history are kept.