A notes system is presented with a content management system. The notes system manages creation and distribution of edits to notes to users sharing the notes. The notes are stored as a series of edits at the notes system. When an edit to a note is received, the edit is propagated to users subscribed to a note by a backend server responsible for managing the note. The shared users are notified through application servers associated with each shared user. The notes server includes various indices for searching the notes and allows notes to be searched quickly to organize viewing by a user of notes and identification of relevant material in the notes. The stored edits are used to display edits to a note to a user by replaying the accessed note to the user.