At references - also sometimes referred to as @ references or @refs - allow you to reference both structured and unstructured data from across your doc.

You can @ reference a page, creating a quick link for your collaborators. You can @ reference a teammate to send them a notification from a specific spot in your doc. Or @ref a particular row, which creates a rich and interactive reference containing all the data in that row.

Below we’ll discuss the basic mechanics of an @ reference, plus some common examples.

An @ reference (pronounced “at reference” or “at ref”) is just a quick and easy way to reference all types of data in your doc from another part of your doc. If you type @ in any part of a Coda doc - on the canvas, in a table, in the formula builder - and you'll see a list of items you can refer to.

To create an @ reference, just follow these steps:

Depending on the data type you’ve chosen (person, table, page, etc.), the resulting reference may look slightly different. For instance, for a person reference, you can hover over it to see their profile image and email. For a row reference, hovering will reveal a preview of the data in that row.

Below are some common ways that customers use @ references in their doc.

You can reference a page from another page, from a comment, subpage, table, etc. Just follow the steps in the section above to open the @ reference builder, then find and select the page you want.

See the gif in the section above for a demonstration.

That’s it! You’ve now created a link to that page. Clicking on that link will lead you to that page. Hovering over this link will open a card with more information about the page.

You can also select a row or a table in the @ reference builder. To do so, just follow the steps above to open the list of options, then search for and select the row or table you want.

Referencing a table creates a link to the table.

Referencing a row creates a link to that row. Bonus: when you hover your cursor over the referenced row, you'll see this has embedded all the data from that row - meaning, it's not just the text within the display column, but the entire row that's been included. From here, you can open the row modal to edit the entire row. And if you edit the row elsewhere, your @-reference will also update. Check out the video below to see a helpful demonstration.

Similar to the examples above, you can also reference people who are in the document. Selecting one of these people with an @ reference will notify them as well. You can learn more about people and notifications here.

Note that when you search for a person in the @ reference builder, you’ll see a list of all the people in your doc. But you may also see a number of people under Not in this doc. These are people that Coda has found from your workspace or contacts that match your search but don’t yet have access to your doc. If you choose to reference one of these people, you’ll then see a prompt where you can decide whether or not to share your doc with them.