Beta readers: a reader copy and their comments

Send your book to beta readers as one file, and add their comments to your project. It works with files only. Nothing is uploaded, nobody makes an account, and your writing is never on a server.

Make a reader copy

Open Export on a book and choose Reader copy (HTML). Pick the chapters you want to include and, if you like, write a short note for your readers. Download saves one file, ending in -reader-copy.html.

Send that file to your readers by email, a shared folder or a message. They open it in any web browser, on a computer or a phone, and it works with no connection.

The reader copy holds your manuscript in plain text, like a Word file. Anyone who has the file can read it and copy it. Send it only to people you trust. It leaves out your notes, other versions of passages and anything else the other exports leave out.

What a reader sees

The chapters, a contents list and a few lines on how to comment. A reader selects some text; a box opens at the bottom of the window where they can write a comment or press a reaction (Loved this, Confusing, Slow here, Doesn’t ring true). Their comments show in the margin beside the chapter, and the words they commented on are highlighted.

Their comments are kept in their own browser, on their own computer, under the copy’s name, so they can close the file and come back to it. The file makes no connection to anything, and a page of its own rules (a Content-Security-Policy) stops it loading or running anything but its own script.

When a reader is done they type their name and press Download my comments. That saves a small file ending in .rescriptus-comments.json. They send it back to you, by email or however they like.

Add their comments

In the editor, open a chapter and choose the Comments tab in the right-hand panel. Press Add reader comments… and pick the file or files readers sent you. You can pick several at once, for several readers and several chapters.

Rescriptus checks each file first. A file that is not a comments file, is about another book, is far bigger than any reader’s comments could be, or cannot be read is refused, with the reason, and the others still go in. Comments in a file that are not valid are left out and counted. Adding the same file twice changes nothing, and a second round from the same reader joins their first.

The Comments tab

Each comment is shown with the reader’s name, when they wrote it, the passage it is about and what they said. The passage is looked for in the chapter as it is now: the exact words first, then the same words with different spacing, then the nearest match if you have edited the passage since (it says so). A comment whose passage cannot be found is listed under Not found in the text now, with the words the reader selected, so nothing a reader said is lost.

• Show in chapter selects the passage in the editor.
• Resolve marks a comment as dealt with, Reopen undoes it.
• Hide takes a comment off the list. Show resolved and hidden brings them back.

Resolve and Hide are your own notes. They are written beside the readers’ files and never change what a reader wrote.

Where the comments are kept

As plain files in your project, one for each reader and chapter:

• books/<book>/reviews/<chapter>/<reader>.yml holds one reader’s comments on one chapter: the words selected, a little of the text before and after, the comment and the time.
• books/<book>/reviews/<chapter>/_author.yml holds your resolves and hides.

Because each reader has their own file, they never clash. The folder is named for the chapter’s name (not its number), so putting chapters in a different order keeps its comments with it. When you join a chapter to the one before it, the comments follow the words. When you split a chapter, the comments stay with the first half; those about the second half show as not found, with their quote. A book exported to Word, PDF, EPUB, Markdown or text never contains them.