What Rescriptus does

Statuses on every passage

Give any stretch of prose a status and see it as a coloured highlight. Select text, then choose from the menu that appears. Unmarked text takes the chapter's own status.

• Raw: Pure brain dump
• Draft: Better than raw, not final
• Cleaned: Mostly good, ready-ish
• Published: Has been released

A legend above the page counts the words in each status, and each chapter in the list shows its mix. The Ready check tells you whether a chapter has any Raw text, undecided alternates or a missing title left. Read more

Alternates

Not sure about a passage? Make an alternate and write another version in its place. Flip between versions with the arrows. Until you decide, every version stays in the file, hidden from readers and exports. Keep one and the others are removed from the chapter, though on GitHub they stay in History. Read more

Notes in the text

Leave a note to yourself in the middle of a chapter. It shows as a small marker, does not count as words, and is left out of your exports. Separate Notes pages, in folders, hold outlines, research and ideas. Read more

A story wiki, with a slide-over

A page for each character, place, group or piece of lore. Start with the built-in categories or make your own, each with the fields you want: text, long text, choices, numbers, dates, yes or no, lists, and links to other entries.

Click an entry beside your chapter and it opens in a slide-over, read-only, without moving you from your place on the page. Follow links between entries and step back. Read more

Search, Ctrl+K and find and replace

Press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac) to jump to any book, chapter, wiki page or note by title, or to search the text of your whole project. In a chapter, Ctrl+F finds and Ctrl+H replaces. Shortcuts

Formatting and live preview

Write *italics* and **bold** as you would in a message, or select text and use the buttons or Ctrl+B and Ctrl+I. Ctrl+Shift+Enter adds a scene break. Headings and quotes are typed the Markdown way. The optional Live button hides the symbols except where you are typing, and shows headings and quotes as they will read. Focus mode strips the screen down to the page.

Merging changes from another device

Edit on your laptop, then your phone, or in another editor. With GitHub, Rescriptus checks for outside changes every 30 seconds and when you come back to the tab. When you were typing in the same file, edits to different words are combined without a question. When the same words changed, you see both versions side by side and choose. Nothing is overwritten without your say. A chapter can be edited in one tab at a time. Read more

History and restore

When your project is on GitHub, every chapter, wiki page and note keeps its earlier versions. Open one, compare it with your text now, and restore the whole version or just one passage. The text you replaced stays in history. Deleting anything shows an Undo button first. Projects in your browser or a folder have no history of their own, so Rescriptus says so.

Read more

Import

Bring in Word files (.docx), Markdown, plain text, or a zip of them, including an Obsidian vault. Choose how to cut the text into chapters, see a preview, untick what you do not want, and nothing is added until you click Import. Read more

Export, and download everything

Export any book as a Word manuscript (A4 or US Letter), an EPUB, one Markdown file or plain text. Exports leave out status marks, undecided alternates and your notes in the text. There is no PDF export.

Download everything gives you a zip of the whole project as plain files, and Restore from a zip puts one back. Read more

Where your files live

• This browser. Start at once with no account. Download a copy now and then.
• A folder on your computer. Plain files in a folder you choose, such as one your cloud drive syncs. Works in Chrome, Edge and other Chromium browsers on a computer.
• GitHub. A repository of your own, with every save in its history, on every device you sign in from.
• Google Drive. Coming. Not available yet.

You can move between them, and your project comes with you. Read more

Phone and tablet layout

On a phone there is a bottom bar for Library, Chapters, Wiki and Notes, drawers for the chapter list and wiki, previous and next chapter in the top bar, a formatting bar above the keyboard, and touch targets at least 44 pixels high. It runs in the browser. It is not a separate app.

Light and dark

One tap switches between a light page and a dark one. Your choice is remembered on that device.

Saving that copes with a bad connection

There is no save button. What you type is written to a journal on your device at once and sent to your storage a moment later. If the connection drops, keep writing: your edits wait and are sent when it returns. Text that cannot be saved anywhere is kept in a recovery page, not discarded. Opening Rescriptus with no connection at all does not work yet. Read more