Write and format prose

Write in a chapter

Open a chapter from Chapters in the sidebar. Your changes save as you work; watch the save status in the strip under the page and leave the app open if it reports an error. The editor works with your text, not a generated version of it.

The same strip counts words, pages, and this session’s change. Today tracks the words you add in this World on this device; choose it to set or clear a daily goal.

Use the writing toolbar for emphasis and paragraph styles; in a narrow window they fold under Formatting. Ctrl/Cmd+B toggles bold, Ctrl/Cmd+I toggles italic, and Ctrl/Cmd+Z undoes typing. Existing Markdown is read by the editor; complex imported formatting should be checked rather than assumed identical.

Writing, Manuscript, and Focus

• Writing and Manuscript are the two sides of the toggle at the left of the writing toolbar. Writing is a comfortable column in your own type; the typeface and text-size controls in the toolbar adjust it.
• Manuscript displays the writing against page layout. Screen typography and page setup answer different questions; changing your comfortable reading size is not a request to change the printed book.
• Focus hides the sidebar, panels, and status strip so you can concentrate on the text. Use Focus in the title bar or Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+F to enter it; Exit focus or the same shortcut leaves it. A small bar keeps your word count and daily goal in view.
• Outline, in the title bar, shows the Plan’s outline beside the prose. Ctrl/Cmd+backslash toggles it; adding Shift cycles its width.

Names remain prose

Recognized names and aliases can lead to entity records without adding brackets to your sentences. Select a new name and choose New entity to create a record. Click a recognized name to open its editable record beside the chapter; Back to chapter returns the panel to the chapter, and Open full page leaves for the record itself.

Wiki, in the title bar (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+F), searches existing records without leaving the chapter. The Entity highlights switch in the writing toolbar changes the presentation, not the manuscript’s words.

The panel beside the prose is titled Chapter context for the chapter’s own information, and Reference while it shows an entity or a note you kept there. A plot point in Chapter context is an intention for the scene, not text inserted into the manuscript.

Undo the right kind of change

Text undo belongs to the editor. Structural changes—such as reorganizing a World—have their own Undo action in the app’s feedback. These are not one combined history. After a structural action, use the offered Undo rather than expecting text undo to restore the World’s organization.