Editing someone else’s document directly can feel presumptuous, even when the change is obviously right. Suggest mode gives you a middle ground: your edits appear as proposals rather than changes, and whoever owns the document decides whether to accept them.
Anyone with edit permission for a document can use suggest mode. Once you turn it on, your edits become suggestions rather than direct changes, and collaborators can accept them to apply the revision, or reject them to leave the content as it was.
Entering Suggest Mode
Open a document you have edit permission for, click Editing in the upper-right corner, and select Suggesting. Or use the shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + X on Windows, ⌘ + ⌥ + X on Mac.
Adding Suggestions
Once in suggest mode, edit the document as you normally would. Each change appears as a suggestion card in a panel on the right, rather than changing the content directly.
Note: Some actions do not appear as suggestion cards and change the document directly instead, even in suggest mode. This includes changing a callout’s border or background colour, indenting content, reordering a numbered list, changing a code block’s language, and editing inside a board.
Accepting or Rejecting Suggestions
Click the accept icon on a suggestion card to apply it to the document, or the reject icon to leave the content unchanged.
After accepting or rejecting, pressing Ctrl + Z on Windows or ⌘ + Z on Mac undoes the action and brings the suggestion card back.
Note: There is no suggestion history. Undoing your last action is the only way to bring back a suggestion you already responded to.
Reacting or Replying to Suggestions
Hover over a suggestion card to add a reaction, or click the comment icon to reply directly to that suggestion.
Getting Notified
Adding a suggestion to someone else’s document notifies both the document owner and whoever wrote the content you suggested a change to. This arrives as a message from Docs Assistant and as a notification inside the document itself.
Note: Docs Assistant batches its messages roughly every ten minutes. Notifications inside the document itself arrive immediately, so you will know right away if someone accepts or rejects your suggestion.
Exiting Suggest Mode
Click Suggesting in the upper-right corner and select Editing or Viewing to switch out of suggest mode.
Keyboard Shortcuts by Mode
| Operating system | Editing | Suggesting | Viewing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mac | E, or Control + ⌥ + E | ⌘ + ⌥ + X | Control + ⌥ + V |
| Windows | E, or Ctrl + Alt + E | Ctrl + Alt + X | Ctrl + Alt + V |
Practical Use Cases for SMEs and Startups
- External reviewers: Let a client or partner propose wording changes without giving them the ability to edit the document outright.
- Peer review before publishing: Have a colleague suggest edits to a policy or announcement so the original author retains final say.
- Onboarding new writers: Let someone new to a team practise editing shared documents with a safety net before they get full edit confidence.
- Cross-team feedback: Collect input from another department on a shared document without their edits landing directly in the text.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Who can enter suggest mode in a Lark document?
Anyone with edit permission for the document.
Who can accept or reject a suggestion?
Anyone with edit permission for the document, not only the person who made the suggestion.
Can I accept or reject all suggestions in a document at once?
No. Suggestions have to be accepted or rejected one at a time.
Will other people be affected if I switch to suggest mode?
No. Suggest mode only changes how your own edits behave; it has no effect on how other collaborators see or edit the document.
What mode does a document open in by default?
Editing mode. If you switch to suggest mode and then refresh or reopen the document, it will reopen in suggest mode rather than reverting to editing.
Why don’t my edits on a board appear as suggestion cards?
Suggestions are not supported for content inside a board. Edits made there change the board directly, even while you are in suggest mode elsewhere in the document.
Do suggestions carry over when I save a version of a document?
No. Saving a version accepts all pending suggestions automatically, except for suggested deletions, which are not applied.
Proposing Changes Without Making Them
Suggest mode exists for exactly the situations where you are not sure a change is yours to make. It keeps your input visible and easy to act on, without taking the decision out of the document owner’s hands.
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