Storyist User’s Guide

  1. Welcome to Storyist
    1. Product Overview
    2. Installing Storyist
  2. Understanding the User Interface
    1. Project View
    2. Toolbar
    3. Template Chooser
    4. Workspaces Window
    5. Inspector Window
    6. Backups Window
    7. Fonts Window
    8. Colors Window
    9. Preferences Window
    10. Keyboard Shortcuts and Shortcut Menus
  3. Getting Started
    1. Creating a New Project from a Template
    2. Opening an Existing Project
    3. Importing a File
    4. Getting Around
  4. Working with Text
    1. Editing and Formatting Text
    2. Creating and Applying Styles
    3. Working with Links
    4. Adding Elements to the Outline
    5. Inserting and Resizing Images
    6. Adding and Displaying Comments
    7. Bookmarking Frequently Viewed Text Locations
  5. Working with Story Sheets
    1. About Story Sheets
    2. Customizing Story Sheet Fields
    3. Adding Images to Story Sheets
  6. Working with Outlines
    1. Adding Outline Elements
    2. Moving Outline Elements
    3. Editing Outline Level Properties
  7. Working with Storyboards
    1. Adding Items to a Corkboard
    2. Specifying the Layout of Corkboard Items
    3. Adding Items to a Collage
    4. Adding Section and Scene Sheets to a Collage
    5. Resizing Storyboard Items
    6. Changing the Representation of Storyboard Items
    7. Color Coding Index Cards
  8. Working with the Project View
    1. Adding Items to the Project
    2. Adding Outline Elements to Project Items
    3. Grouping Project Items
    4. Deleting Project Items
    5. Editing Project Item Preferences
    6. Searching the Project
  9. Working with Workspaces
    1. Splitting Views
    2. Changing the Orientation of Split Views
    3. Opening a New Project Window
    4. Creating a New Workspace
    5. Managing Workspaces
  10. Tracking Word Count and Writing Time Goals
    1. Setting Project Goals
    2. Setting Session Goals
  11. Saving and Backing Up Your Work
    1. Configuring Storyist to Save Your Work Automatically
    2. Configuring Storyist to Back Up Your Work Automatically
    3. Manually Backing Up Your Work
    4. Reverting to a Backup
  12. Exporting and Sharing Your Work
    1. Exporting Project Items
    2. Exporting Project Items as Text and Image Files
    3. Exporting Project Items as a Single eBook
    4. Creating and Using Export Presets
    5. Sharing Project Items Over a Local Network
  13. Glossary

Saving and Backing Up Your Work

Configuring Storyist to Save Your Work Automatically

You can configure Storyist to save a copy of your work automatically every few minutes to help minimize data loss in case of power failure or other unforeseen circumstances.

To have Storyist save your work for you automatically:

  1. Open the Preferences window by choosing Preferences from the Storyist menu.
  2. Click General.
  3. Click the Autosave documents checkbox.
  4. Enter the autosave interval that suits your needs (every 5 minutes, for example).
  5. Close the Preferences window.

When autosave is enabled, Storyist periodically saves a copy of your work to a file with the characters (Autosaved) appended to the filename. For example, if you are working on a story named My Novel.story and you have not saved your changes, Storyist creates a file named My Novel (Autosaved).story in the same directory. Storyist autosaves only those files with unsaved changes.

The next time you manually save your changes, Storyist removes the autosaved file, because your saved file is more recent than the autosaved file.

Configuring Storyist to Back Up Your Work Automatically

You can configure Storyist to back up your project for you automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

To have Storyist back up your project for you: automatically:

  1. Open the Preferences window by choosing Preferences from the Storyist menu.
  2. Click General.
  3. Click the Automatically backup documents checkbox.
  4. Select the backup: Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.

The backup copy of your story is created on your computer in the “~/Library/Application Support/Storyist/Backup” folder (where the “~” character represents the path to your home folder).

Manually Backing Up Your Work

You can also back up your work manually. You might choose to make a backup before starting a round of revisions or before trying a scene you are not sure you’re going to keep.

To back up your project manually:

  1. Choose File > Back Up. A dialog appears.
  2. Enter a comment to help you identify this backup.
  3. Click Back Up.

Alternately:

  1. Choose File > Backups. The Backups window appears.
  2. Click the Make Backup button.
  3. Optional: Double-click in the comment column of the new backup and enter a comment.

It is good practice to make regular backup copies of the ~/Library/Application Support/Storyist/ folder and other important folders on your computer.

Note: You can view your previous backups by choosing File > Backups.

Reverting to a Backup

Not happy with the changes you’ve made to your story? It is easy to return to a previously backed-up version:

  1. Choose File > Backups. The Backups Window appears.
  2. Select the version you want, and click Revert to Backup. The document now contains the previous version of your project.

If you want to open a backup directly (instead of using the File > Revert to Backup command), please copy it from the backup folder to another location before opening it.

Note: When you revert to a previous version of a file, any unsaved data is lost. Also, choosing File > Save overwrites the contents of the file. This means that the newer version of your file is overwritten by the older (backed-up) version and will no longer be accessible.

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