Documents UX feedback (0.58): chart duplication, filters, save behavior, layout & search

Roberto · January 19, 2026, 4:09pm

Hi everyone

I’ve been testing the new Documents feature introduced in Metabase 0.58 and I really like the direction: combining narrative, charts, and collaboration feels like the right evolution alongside dashboards.

While using Documents in real analysis workflows, I ran into a few UX / product-model limitations that make them harder to use at scale. I’ve consolidated everything into a GitHub issue with concrete examples and suggestions:

github.com/metabase/metabase

Documents UX feedback: chart duplication, filters, save behavior, and layout limitations

opened 04:04PM - 19 Jan 26 UTC

robertocommit

## Context I’ve been actively testing the new **Documents** feature introduced …in Metabase 0.58. Overall, it’s a very strong direction (documents + charts + narrative), but during real usage I ran into several UX and product limitations that make Documents harder to use for serious analysis and storytelling. Below is consolidated feedback from hands-on usage. --- ## Key Issues & Suggestions ### 1. Charts are duplicated when added to Documents **Current behavior** When I add an existing chart from a collection into a Document, Metabase creates a new copy (e.g. chart `366` becomes `377`). From that point on, I need to manage two independent charts. **Problem** * Easy to lose track of which chart is the “source of truth” * Any update requires manual duplication or rework * Makes Documents hard to maintain at scale **Suggestion** * Allow referencing a chart *without duplicating it* (read-only or linked mode) * Or at least provide a clear UI indication that the chart is a duplicated instance * Optional toggle: *“Insert as reference” vs “Insert as copy”* --- ### 2. No filters on charts inside Documents **Problem** Charts inside Documents cannot be filtered. This forces users to duplicate charts just to show variants of the same metric (time range, country, category, etc.). **Suggestion** * Enable per-chart filters (similar to Dashboards) * Or allow binding Document-level filters to charts Without filters, Documents are much less useful for exploration. --- ### 3. Manual save is easy to forget **Current behavior** Documents require explicit saving, and it’s very easy to forget—especially during exploration. **Suggestion** * Autosave (preferred) * Or a persistent, always-visible “Unsaved changes” indicator * Or always show the **Save** button more prominently Right now it’s easy to lose work unintentionally. --- ### 4. Supporting text is hard to remove **Observed behavior** Once “Supporting text” is added next to a chart, removing it is unintuitive. In my case, I had to remove and re-add the entire chart to get rid of the text block. **Suggestion** * Explicit “Remove supporting text” action * Or allow converting it back into a normal text block --- ### 5. No dynamic Table of Contents **Suggestion** For longer Documents, a dynamic table of contents (based on headings) would be extremely valuable. Example: similar to how Basecamp / DHH-style tools handle long-form internal docs. This would significantly improve navigation and readability. --- ### 6. Slash command search feels incomplete **Observed behavior** The `/` command is great and smartly prioritizes recently opened charts. However, the search often fails to surface older or less recently used charts, even when typing exact names. **Suggestion** * Improve search completeness and reliability * Possibly show clear separation between “recent” and “all results” --- Happy to clarify or provide concrete examples if useful.

Happy to clarify, provide examples, or discuss trade-offs.

Thanks to the Metabase team for pushing this feature forward

dwhitemv · January 19, 2026, 8:56pm

Good feedback, I saw much the same in my explorations of the feature.

Documents, as they stand currently, is more of a Jupyter Notebook than a Word document. This probably stems from its original use as a place for Metabot AI output. That’s likely where the ‘charts are parts of the document’ paradigm came from.

At first blush, it doesn’t feel very Metabase-y to have questions clone like that, if you think of documents like dashboards. But, I can see how building charts specifically for the document, using the use-a-question-as-a-datasource feature, allows the document version to be decoupled and thus customized for the document it’s in. It also removes the need to support filter/variable controls in the document (although there’s good reasons to have that, if you believe in more interactive documents, in a Tableau vein).

There’s other FRs to get autosave and/or the Save button easier to find, I’m trying to thumbs-up them when I see them.

Tip on the supporting text, you can Backspace an empty text box to delete it. But the menu option that shows it should allow toggling its visibility (change to Remove Supporting Text when its visible).

Finally, it’d be nice to have a cheat sheet for the Markdown dialect in use, my markdown is clearly contaminated by mediawiki, took a while to figure out headers are # Header and not =Header=.