Finding your way around the editor

The editor keeps the writing surface clear and tucks everything else into a slim toolbar and a few panels you open only when you want them. Closed, they take up no room. This is a tour of what each one does.

The toolbar and status line

The toolbar runs in a single row across the top and sits flush under the navigation bar. From the left you have your save menu, settings (the piece's writing type and tags), Format, Find, your writing mode, and a More menu that holds everything else. If the row is ever wider than your screen, it scrolls sideways instead of wrapping. Just under it, a status line tells you where your work stands: saving, saved, unsaved changes, or saved only on this device when a save could not reach the server. For what those states mean and how saving works, see Saving and recovering your work.

Word count and the writing timer

A small bar under the toolbar keeps a running word count and a writing timer. The timer counts the time you spend actually writing and pauses on its own when you stop, so it measures work, not the minutes a tab sat open. Both are just for you.

Formatting your page

Select Format to set how the piece looks. The menu is grouped into sections you open as you need them:

• Font and size for the body text. Choose from a serif, Georgia, Times, Garamond, a sans-serif, Arial, or a monospace face.
• Spacing: line spacing with the usual presets plus a custom value, and separate spacing before and after each paragraph.
• Margins for the page, with Narrow, Normal, and Wide shortcuts.

These settings belong to the piece. They travel with it into the published view and into anything you export, so a Garamond, double-spaced manuscript reads the same everywhere.

At the bottom is your reading font, a separate choice that changes only how the editor looks to you while you write. Pick OpenDyslexic, designed to be easier to read for dyslexic writers, or Atkinson Hyperlegible, the high-legibility face from the Braille Institute. It is free for everyone, you can turn it on or off whenever you like, and it never changes the piece, the published view, or your exports. More in Accessibility and reading comfort.

A different font for one passage

The Format menu sets the page default. To give just a stretch of text its own look, select it and use the font control (the T) in the selection toolbar that pops up. Pick a face or a size to override the page default for that text, or choose Default to drop the override so it follows the page again. These per-passage choices travel into the published view and into Word and HTML exports; PDF uses the page font.

The ruler

On a computer, a ruler sits above the page. Drag the markers along the top edge to set the left and right page margins, and the markers along the bottom edge to set the current paragraph's first-line, left, and right indents (drag the first-line marker left of the others for a hanging indent). Everything snaps to a clean eighth of an inch, and you can nudge a selected marker with the arrow keys.

Find and replace

Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) or select Find to open a bar below the toolbar. Type to highlight every match and see how many there are, step through them with the arrows, and turn on match case when you need it. Open the replace row to swap the current match or all of them at once. Close the bar to clear the highlights.

The More menu

More keeps the secondary actions out of the way until you want them:

• Notebook opens the panel for jumping between pieces (below).
• Tools opens the tools panel (below).
• Favorite stars the piece.
• Focus mode clears the screen down to the words.
• Preview opens the public view of the piece in a new tab, so you never leave your draft.
• Export saves the piece as Markdown, HTML, JSON, Word, or PDF, or sends it to your printer. Your font, spacing, and margins come along.
• Import brings a file in from your device or from Google Drive.

Jumping between pieces

Open the More menu and choose Notebook for a panel that moves between your pieces without leaving the editor. On a computer it slides in from the left. On a phone it rises from the bottom. It stays closed until you open it, so it never crowds the page you are writing, and it stays open as you move, so you can hop through several pieces in a row.

Inside are tabs:

• Favorites and Recent are there for everyone.
• Folders, Worlds, and Series group your pieces the way you already organize them. These come with Pro.

The piece you are on is marked so you always know where you are.

Switching is safe. Inkbreaker saves the piece you are leaving before it opens the next one, so you never lose a sentence by clicking away. If a save cannot reach the server, it keeps you on the piece and tells you instead of moving on. Your work is held on your own device until it lands. See Saving and recovering your work.

Favorites

Star a piece to keep it close. The star lives in the More menu for the piece you are in, and on every row in the notebook panel and the file manager. Starred pieces collect under the Favorites tab, newest first. Favorites are yours alone and never show to readers. Anyone can use them, free or Pro.

Focus mode

Focus mode clears the screen down to the words. Choose Focus mode from the More menu to hide the surrounding chrome and widen the page, and choose it again to bring everything back. Your work keeps saving the whole time.

The outline

On a computer, an outline runs alongside the editor and lists your headings and page breaks as you write. It floats in the margin, so opening or closing it never nudges your writing out of place. Select any line to jump straight to it. On a phone, the same list folds into the page chip in the toolbar, so there is one place to move around a long piece.

Page breaks

To split a long piece into pages, type / and choose Page break, or pick it from the insert menu. Inkbreaker does not paginate on its own, so the breaks are yours to place. Each one shows up in the outline and the page chip, and you can give it a label, so a break can read as "Chapter two" instead of just "Page break".

The tools panel

Open the More menu and choose Tools to open a panel on the right (a sheet from the bottom on a phone). The top holds a prompt you can write toward, which everyone can use. Below that, Pro writers get the worldbuilding tools for the piece's world: the World Bible, the Time Weaver, the Relationship Web, the Consistency Sentinel, and the name generator. Each one has its own guide under Worldbuilding tools.

See also: The editor and notebook, Organizing your work.