Veronica Berglyd Olsen
70 lines
3.3 KiB
ReStructuredText
70 lines
3.3 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. _a_intro:
|
|
|
|
************
|
|
Key Features
|
|
************
|
|
|
|
novelWriter is a multi-document plain text editor using a markup syntax inspired by Markdown to
|
|
apply simple formatting to the text. It is designed for writing novels, so the formatting features
|
|
are limited to those relevant for this purpose. Your novel project is organised as a collection of
|
|
separate plain text documents instead of a single, large document.
|
|
|
|
Below are some key features of novelWriter.
|
|
|
|
**Focus on writing**
|
|
The aim of the user interface is to let the user focus on writing instead of spending time
|
|
formatting text. Formatting is therefore limited to a small set of formatting tags for simple
|
|
things like text emphasis and paragraph alignment. When you really want to focus on just
|
|
writing, you can switch the editor into :guilabel:`Focus Mode` where only the text editor window
|
|
itself is vissible.
|
|
|
|
**Keep an eye on your notes**
|
|
The main window can optionally show a document viewer to the right of the editor. This view
|
|
panel is intended for displaying another scene document, you character notes, plot notes, or any
|
|
other document you may need to reference while writing.
|
|
|
|
**Organise your documents how you like**
|
|
You can split your novel project up into as many individual documents as you want to. When you
|
|
build the project, they are all glued together in the top-to-bottom order in which they appear
|
|
in the project tree. You can use as few text documents as you like, but splitting the project up
|
|
into chapters and scenes means you can easily reorder them using the drag and drop feature. You
|
|
can start out with a few documents and then later split the document into multiple documents
|
|
based on its headers.
|
|
|
|
**Keep track of your plot elements**
|
|
All notes in your project can be assigned a *tag* you can *reference* from any other document or
|
|
notes. In fact, you can add a new tag under each heading of a note if you need to be able to
|
|
reference a specific section. Note tags are organised into categories with specific reference
|
|
keywords.
|
|
|
|
**Get an overview of your plot elements**
|
|
In the :guilabel:`Outline View` on the main window you can see an outline of all the chapters,
|
|
scenes, and sections of your project. If they have any references in them, these are listed in
|
|
columns. You can also add a synopsis to each document, which can be listed here. You have the
|
|
option to add or remove columns of information from the outline. A subset of the outline
|
|
information is also available in the :guilabel:`Novel View` as a replacement for the main
|
|
project tree.
|
|
|
|
**Building your manuscript**
|
|
Whether you want to compile a manuscript, or export all your notes, or generate an outline of
|
|
your chapters and scenes with a synopsis, you can use the :guilabel:`Build Novel Project` tool.
|
|
The tool lets you select what information you want to include in the generated document, and how
|
|
it is formatted. You can send the result to a printer, a PDF, or to an Open Document file that
|
|
can be opened by most office type word processors.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. _a_intro_screenshots:
|
|
|
|
Screenshots
|
|
===========
|
|
|
|
**novelWriter with default system theme:**
|
|
|
|
.. image:: images/screenshot_default.png
|
|
:width: 800
|
|
|
|
**novelWriter with dark theme:**
|
|
|
|
.. image:: images/screenshot_dark.png
|
|
:width: 800
|