Appearance, backups and what this browser remembers. Nothing here leaves your device.
Appearance
Choose light or dark, and a colourway. Both apply everywhere across OBSCURA and are remembered on this device. High contrast is black on white, or white on black, with every edge drawn dark enough to see.
Base colour scheme
Light, dark, or follow your system.
Colourway
The accent colour, in light and dark.
Comfort and access
How the site reads, on every page and in every application. Each choice is kept on this device and applies at once, in every tab.
Text size
The words grow and the page keeps its layout, so nothing has to scroll sideways. A document’s own text stays the size the document sets.
Typeface
Readable is Atkinson Hyperlegible, made by the Braille Institute so that letters easily confused, such as b and d, or I, l and 1, each look unlike the others. Many readers with dyslexia find it easier. It is kept on this site and fetched only when chosen.
Spacing
Compact draws everything a step closer together, for more on the screen at once. Buttons stay large enough to tap.
Motion
Whether things slide, fade and lift as they appear. Turning it off leaves the site laid out exactly as it is, and still.
Read aloud
A Read aloud button beside any text you select, on every page. Alt+Shift+A reads the selection, or stops, whether this is on or not. Only the voices kept on this device are used, so the words are not sent anywhere to be spoken.
Dates and times
How the Workspace writes a date and a time: Docs, Sheets, Slides, Notes, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Plan, Drive and the PDF editor.
Date order
For a date written in figures. This device’s choice is whatever its language and region settings say.
Clock
The 24-hour clock writes a quarter past two in the afternoon as 14:15; the 12-hour clock as 2:15 pm.
Your folder
Everything you make can be written straight into a folder on this computer, as ordinary files you own: documents as Word files, spreadsheets as Excel files, presentations as PowerPoint files, notes as Markdown, the calendar as an .ics and contacts as a .vcf. Docs, Sheets, Slides, Notes, Tasks, Contacts and Calendar work from those files, and read one again when it is changed in another program. Each application gets its own folder inside the one you pick, so the Workspace, Notes, the Photo Editor and the suites do not tread on each other. Nothing is uploaded either way: the folder is about where your work lives after you close the tab, not about who can see it.
Writing to a folder needs the File System Access API, which today means Chrome, Edge and other Chromium browsers on a computer. Without it your work is kept inside this browser instead, and Backups below will write the whole lot to a single file you can move anywhere.
Available offline
This browser keeps a copy of the site on this device, so the Workspace opens with no connection at all. This is what is here now. Your documents are kept separately, in the apps, and are not part of it.
On this device
Asking the offline copy what it holds...
Make everything available offline
Fetches whatever is missing: the free applications, and the libraries they load the first time you open a Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF file. With a Pro key, the code of every Pro application as well, which the server sends only to a key it accepts.
Sealed
Sealed mode
Nothing is fetched from the network: every page, application and worker of this site runs from what is on this device, and the browser is told to refuse any connection that would leave it. What it covers, and what it cannot.
Test the seal
Tries a request to this site’s server, one to another site and one from a worker, and shows what happened to each.
Pinned releases
Update only to signed releases
A new version of the site is taken only once its signature checks out and every file kept on this device matches the signed list of files. What it protects against, and what it cannot.
Check for a signed release
Asks for the newest signed list now, rather than waiting for the browser’s own check.
Privacy and data
OBSCURA keeps a small amount of data in this browser only: your colourway, your profile, and your tool choices. Nothing you do here is ever uploaded, and there is no account.
What is stored on this device
Reading local storage...
Between the applications
The applications read what each other keeps on this device, and change none of it. Each of these can be turned off; what they read stays where it is either way.
Search your work
Ctrl K finds the people in Contacts, events, cards, notes, plans and the words of documents, spreadsheets and presentations as well as tools. What it reads is held in the open page while you search, and nowhere else.
Contacts in other applications
Calendar, Tasks, Docs, Books and Practice offer the people in Contacts, and can add somebody to it when you ask. Off, none of them shows the address book.
Backups
Everything the apps keep in this browser, in one file you hold. Restoring puts it back, on this device or another, and keeps whatever is already here.
Download a backup
A plain .json file of every document, sheet, note, board and setting. Readable by anything.
Download an encrypted bundle
The same backup as one .obscura file, encrypted with a passphrase you choose. Safe to keep in a synced folder or send to yourself. AES-256-GCM, key from the passphrase by PBKDF2-SHA256 at 600,000 rounds.
Everything this site keeps in this browser, the Workspace and the paid applications alike, with your settings, as one .zip file to take to another device, or encrypted with a passphrase you choose. It lists what it holds, here and in a text file inside it. Keep and Practice stay encrypted in it, as they are here. Your Pro key is not in it.
Restore every application
From a backup of every application. It shows what the file holds before anything changes, then replaces that work in this browser. A Keep or Practice vault comes back locked, and opens with its own passphrase.
Application
Holds
Size
Restoring replaces what this browser holds for each of these, and leaves everything else here as it is. Close the applications in any other tab first.
Wipe
Wipe this device now
Removes every store, the remembered folder, the offline copies of the pages and the site’s own worker. The folder on your disk is untouched. Cannot be undone; take a backup first.
Wipe shortcut
When this is on, pressing Ctrl+Shift+X twice within two seconds on any page wipes the device at once, with no confirmation. Off unless you turn it on.
Clear all OBSCURA data on this device
Resets your colourway, profile, and tool choices. Cannot be undone.
Tools
Turn any tool off to hide it from its suite page and from search. It stays reachable by its own address, and nothing is deleted. Your choices are saved on this device.
Loading your tools...
Profile
Optional. Used to personalise your Workspace documents. It stays on this device and is never uploaded.
Your name or business
Shown on documents you create in the Workspace.
Save profile
Stored locally in this browser.
Community
Plugins for the Photo Editor. Each is one small file that runs in the browser: download it, then install it from Filter > Plugins in the editor, or copy it and make your own. Every one is reviewed before it appears here.
Private versions of the tools you already use online. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account.
Price
The Workspace is free. Every other tool is free to check a file with; saving the result, the Sovereign Suite application, the Photo Editor, the Engineering Suite, PDF Studio and Case are OBSCURA Pro.
Workspace free
Tools
The Workspace, the Sovereign Suite, the Engineering Suite, and the Desk, Record, Standard and Trace suites.
377 tools
Install as an app
It then works with no connection, and your phone’s share sheet and your computer’s Open with can send a file straight to the workbench. On a computer, use your browser’s install option; on a phone, Add to Home Screen. Step by step, for each browser.
Keyboard
Press ? anywhere on this site to see what the keyboard does.
OBSCURA Pro
Save and export in every tool outside the Workspace, the whole Sovereign Suite application, the whole Photo Editor, the whole Engineering Suite, PDF Studio and Case.