Tips & Tricks#

This is a list of hopefully helpful little tips on how to get the most out of novelWriter.

Note

This section will be expanded over time, and if you would like to have something added, feel free to contribute, or start a discussion on the project’s Discussions Page

Overview#

Managing the Project

Layout Tricks

Organising Your Text

Other Tools

How-Tos#

Managing the Project#

Merge Multiple Documents Into One#

If you need to merge a set of documents in your project into a single document, you can achieve this by first making a new folder for just that purpose, and drag all the files you want merged into this folder. Then you can right click the folder, select Transform and Merge Documents in Folder.

In the dialog that pops up, the documents will be in the same order as in the folder, but you can also rearrange them here of you wish.

Layout Tricks#

Create a Simple Table#

The formatting tools available in novelWriter don’t allow for complex structures like tables. However, the editor does render tabs in a similar way to regular word processors. You can set the width of a tab in Preferences.

The tab key should have the same distance in the editor as in the viewer, so you can align text in columns using the tab key, and it should look the same when viewed next to the editor.

This is most suitable for your notes, as the result in exported documents cannot be guaranteed to match.

Organising Your Text#

Add Introductory Text to Chapters#

Sometimes chapters have a short preface, like a brief piece of text or a quote to set the stage before the first scene – Some text that may not be a part of the actual following scene.

If you add separate files for chapters and scenes, this is the perfect place to add such text. Separating chapter and scene files also allows you to set meta data for the whole chapter. Like list all characters present in the chapter, etc.

Distinguishing Soft and Hard Scene Breaks#

Depending on your writing style, you may need to separate between soft and hard scene breaks within chapters. Like for instance if you switch point-of-view character often.

In such cases you may want to use the scene heading for hard scene breaks and section headings for soft scene breaks. the Project Build Tool will let you add separate formatting for the two when you generate your manuscript. You can for instance add the common “* * *” for hard breaks and select to hide section breaks, which will just insert an empty paragraph in their place.

Other Tools#

Convert Project to/from yWriter Format#

There is a tool available that lets you convert a yWriter project to a novelWriter project, and vice versa.

The tool is available at peter88213.github.io/yw2nw