yWriter Comprehensive Help File

This document was recovered from the lost yWriter google sites page, and is still a work in progress

WRITING AND EDITING. How do I ?

... add characters, locations or items to a scene?

Click, drag and drop the desired object from the 'All Characters/Locations/Items' list (right hand side of Scene editor page to the 'In this scene' (on the left)

? add a description?

The scene list shows you your scenes. On the bottom half of this page is the tab 'Description?. Write a description here in about ten words or less.

? change the font and size across all scenes?

With no scene open, on the main screen, go to Scene>Set font across all scenes.

? change the order of the tabs (Content /details/ character etc) if I want to?

Answer

? change the title of my novel?

The title is in two places:
The name of the .yw5 file by You can change the .yw5 file?.
(2) The project title displayed at the top of the main screen.
You can change one without changing the other, but to avoid confusion, you probably want to change both. And loading them by double-clicking will work fine???.
Just don't rename the rtf files in the RTF5 folders.

? choose a dictionary to use with yWriter?

A highly recommended FREE one is available at http://wordweb.info/. But by right clicking in a scene you can Google a dictionary or thesaurus.

?. copy from a Word document into yWriter?

Copy and paste
Or directly import the DocX

? develop a 'top level? synopsis showing the plot trajectory ( big conflicts, confrontations, battles and setback) before sketching out scenes, characters, places and the timeline?

This is the top down approach. The 'written synopsis? in yWriter includes the Project Title + Description. If you go to Project>Project Settings there is space for you to write down your big ideas, theme and how it plays itself out. You could do this at a fairly abstract level. Many people, while having a theme at the back of their minds, prefer to work with specifics.

? edit a scene

Chapters and Scenes (respectively) are in the menu bar. Right click the scene description and choose Edit selected scene . Double click on the scene you want in the scene list. The icon next to the open scene will change from to to indicate the scene is being edited.

? edit character, item or location details?

Double click on the appropriate item in the scene editor window. When you save your changes, the object's details will be updated on the main screen and in every open scene editor window.

? edit a yWriter document?

The same way you would edit anywhere else. The benefit of using yWriter's editor is that you can specify autobackups to time stamped files at 60 second (or higher) intervals, and they're stored by date forever. Word, OO and others don?t do this.
Copy and paste scene into Word, make all the changes you like there, and copy & paste back. This is somewhat safer way of ensuring you have al the formatting you want but a bit more of a hassle.

? get a full empty page to write on in yWriter?

Have you tried the full screen editor that's already there? Right click in
the text in the scene editor and toggle it on. You still have the scene
description and title at the bottom, but not much else.
TIP! If you want to use keyboard shortcuts: Shift-F10, F, Enter. (Or if you want margins: Shift-F10, F, F, Enter.)
Comment: When I did tried this I got the full empty page which was great but then couldn?t work out how to ?restore the normal page settings since there was absolutely nothing else. Absolutely nothing. All the stuff at the bottom had vanished. Help!

? import character (from an .xml file) in yWriter?

Project/Import into current project/Characters.

? indent?

To use tabs, go to the 'scene editor? and then settings and click on 'Allow TAB in editor window.
Also Set Paragraph Indent, which is directly above the Allow TAB in editor window

? keep an ideas file?

On the main screen, you could use Project Notes.
You can also set up chapters and scenes with the To-Do or Unused status and enter your ideas in there.

?store my planning ideas

Try this. (1) Have one chapter called 'Planning stuff?. (2) Then have a scene for the three periods: (a) Beginning, (b) Middle and (c) End. You can decide how many scenes you want in each.

? make use of keyboard shortcuts, perhaps by holding down the Shift or Control keys?

Go to Scene>Help>Keyboard shortcuts

?.make changes to my settings?

The recommended method is to make changes to your settings (e.g. editor window size) on a single open window, then click 'Save and Exit'.

? set line spacing in the text editor?

Ctrl + 1 = single spacing; Ctrl + 2 = double spacing
Ctrl + 5 = 1, 5 spacing
Note: When printing out the line spacing goes back to single when
printing from yWriter, no matter how it looks when you send to print.
But you can avoid the problem by opening in the rtf editor and printing from there How?

? use the right mouse key on the contents page of the scene editor window and what happens?

Cut, copy, paste is self-explanatory.
'Cut selection as scene titles?: Any words you put your cursor over will automatically be transferred to Scene title?
'Cut selection for scene description?: Any words you put your cursor over will automatically be transferred to Scene title?
'Add selection to custom dictionary?: ?????
'Create character/location/item from selection?: Will add a character/item/location respectively
Insert link: Opens up your word (and other
Dictionary and Thesaurus lookup: Highlight a word of text and right click to get the answer
Set editor font colour
Set editor background colour
Full screen text editor
Full screen editor with margins
Tiled editor windows
TIP! Try this. Open the main screen which is the screen yWriter opens up with. Right click in an empty space on the left side of the screen and notice how you can quickly create or edit a CHAPTER (among other things). Now click on the right hand scene list and see how you can quickly create or edit a SCENE (among other things).

? use the scene editor window?

Open it up. Go to the Quickstart guide 8 at http://sites.google.com/site/yWritersj/q/the-scene-editor!!

? use the various types of notes?

For whatever you like! Some people use ?Project Notes" on the main screen. Some use 'Scene notes? for things like "give character X's motivation more thought."

What is the difference between View/Edit and Edit?

On the main page navigation bar, View/Edit lets you make changes to Character, Location, Items within scenes. Once a scene is open Edit lets you navigate swiftly and complete a number of editing tasks within the Content page.

What spell checker should I use?

You can right-click a word and get a definition from an online dictionary.

What does the synopsis for each chapter at the bottom of the Main screen comprise?

The Chapter Title plus the Scene Descriptions.

Please provide more details on the export synopsis function?

Answer

Does F7 the spell check work in yWriter?

Yes
There is also a continually updated 'live' spell check.

Can I do my editing in MS Word?

On the Screen List on the main menu right click and 'Open content with default RTF editor.
You do not have to export anything to do your writing or editing. You simply save the RTF in Word and close it and then right click on the scene and 'close the external editor' and everything is updated in yWriter.

I have a lot of editing to do. The first draft was written in Word. Can I edit in Word?

On the main project screen, if you right click on a scene, there's an option "Open content with default RTF editor". If you have Word installed, that should open the scene in Word. When you're done editing, save it in Word and close the scene in Word. Then ? important - right click the scene again, and select "Finished with external editor". This will clear the yWriter lock on the scene. Note that the word count won't update until you open and save the scene with yWriter's internal editor. Note: it may be necessary to open this again in yWriter and save it again for the main screen to update with new word count.

?I edit multiple scenes at the same time?

(1) To open any scene, double click on the scene itself.
(2) Resize
(3) Open another scene and put the scenes side by side. Edit.

How do you write?

The way I approach the problem is I use a series of CAR outlines:
Conflict - Action - Result, starting with a "widescreen" concept of
"What is the book about?" like "Young farm boy becomes an orphan for
the second time (conflict), mixed in with interstellar rebels
(action), and becomes a galactic hero (resolution)".
My big CAR goes into project notes, as do copies of the smaller CARs -
I then create a chapter for each of the smaller CARs and put the
smaller CARs into their respective chapter descriptions so that I can
see (at a glance) what I have planned for that chapter in the
description box below the chapter lists.
I also create an 'unused' scene in each chapter where I write down
some rough notes specific to a chapter and don't want to clutter up my
'project notes' or have them hidden in different scene notes, as well
as put an unused 'chum' chapter at the end of my book for writing
that, while it may not have worked well with chapter x might serve
well to be recycled for chapter y.

In the scene-editing window, I keep running out of space. What do I do?

Enlarge the screen by pressing icon at top right hand corner.
Reduce the size of the fonts.
Right-click in the scene content and select either Full screen text editor
or Full screen editor with margins. Note: When I do this, everything else disappears even the close, minimize etc buttons. The only way I can shut down is to press ctrl+alt+ delete together and end tasks for various things. There must be a better way. Note I have just discovered I must grab the bottom of the page and move up to reveal stuff!! NB I believe you can use Shift-F10, F, Enter.
Or if you want margins: Shift-F10, F, F, Enter. But now that you have the full screen how do you save and get back to where you were?

What is the safest way to edit?

If you really distrust the scene editor, you can always right click the scene in the list, then Open content with default RTF editor. This will start whatever word processor you have installed that's registered as the
Windows default for RTF files. After you close the scene, right click again and choose Finished with external editor.