A novelWriter project requires a dedicated folder for storing its files on the local file system. See a_tech for further details on how files are organised.
A new project can be created from the Project menu by selecting New Project. This will open the New Project Wizard that will assist you in creating a barebone project suited to your needs.
A list of recently opened projects is maintained, and displayed in the Open Project dialog. A project can be removed from this list by selecting it and pressing the Del key.
Project-specific settings are available in Project Settings in the Project menu. See further details below in the a_proj_settings section.
Projects are structured into a set of top level folders called root folders. They are visible in the project tree at the left side of the main window.
The core novel documents go into a root folder of type Novel. Other supporting documents go into the other root folders. These other root folder types are intended for your notes on the various elements of your story. Using them is of course entirely optional.
A new project may not have all of the root folders present, but you can add the ones you want from Create Root Folder in the Project menu.
The root folders are intended for the following use, but aside from the Novel folder, no restrictions are enforced by the application. You can use them however you want.
NovelThis is the root folder of all text that goes into the final novel. This class of documents have other rules and features than other documents in the project. See
a_structfor more details.PlotThis is the root folder where main plots can be outlined. It is optional, but adding at least dummy notes can be useful in order to tag plot elements for the Outline view. Tags in this folder can be references using the
@plotkeyword.CharactersCharacter notes go in this root folder. These are especially important if one wants to use the Outline view to see which character appears where, and which part of the story is told from a specific character's point-of-view. Tags in this folder can be references using the
@povkeyword for point-of-view characters, or the@charkeyword for other characters.LocationsThe locations folder is for various scene locations that you want to track. Tags in this folder can be references using the
@locationkeyword.TimelineIf the story has multiple plot timelines or jumps in time within the same plot, this class of notes can be used to track this. Tags in this folder can be references using the
@timekeyword.ObjectsImportant objects in the story, for instance important objects that change hands often, can be tracked here. Tags in this folder can be references using the
@objectkeyword.EntitiesDoes your plot have many powerful organisations or companies? Or other entities that are part of the plot? They can be organised here. Tags in this folder can be references using the
@entitykeyword.CustomThe custom root folder can be used for tracking anything else not covered by the above options. Tags in this folder can be references using the
@customkeyword.
The root folders correspond to the categories of tags that can be used to reference them. For more information about the tags listed, see a_struct_tags.
Tip
You can rename root folders to whatever you want. The first character in the Flags column in the project tree will still indicate what type they are, and so will the icon if you are using one of the optional icon sets.
Deleted documents will be moved into a special Trash root folder. Documents in the trash folder can then be deleted permanently, either individually, or by emptying the trash from the menu. Documents in the trash folder are removed from the project index and cannot be referenced.
Folders and root folders can only be deleted when they are empty. Recursive deletion is not supported. A document or a folder can be deleted from the Project menu, or by pressing CtrlDel.
If you don't want to delete a document, or put it in the Trash folder where it may be deleted, but still want it out of your main project tree, you can create an Outtakes root folder from the Project menu. You are not allowed to move folders to this root folder, only documents. If you need folders in it to organise your documents, you can of course create new ones there.
You can drag any document to this folder and preserve its settings. The document will always be excluded from the Build Novel Project builds. It is also removed from the project index, so the tags and references defined in it will not show up anywhere else.
If novelWriter crashes or otherwise exits without saving the project state, or if you're using a file synchronisation tool that runs out of sync, there may be files in the project folder that aren't tracked in the core project file. These files, when discovered, are recovered and added back into the project if possible.
The discovered files are scanned for meta information that gives clues as to where the document may previously have been located in the project. The project loading routines will try to put them back as close as possible to this location, if it still exists. Generally, it will be appended to the end of the folder where it previously was located. If that folder doesn't exist, it will try to add it to the correct root folder. If it cannot figure out which root folder is correct, the document will be added to the Novel root folder. Only if the Novel folder is missing will it give up.
If the title of the document can be recovered, the word "Recovered:" will be added as a prefix. If the title cannot be determined, the document will be named "Recovered File N" where N is a sequential number.
To prevent lost documents caused by file conflicts when novelWriter projects are synced with file synchronisation tools, a project lockfile is written to the project folder. If you try to open a project which has such a file present, you will be presented with a warning, and some information about where else novelWriter thinks the project is also open. You will be give the option to ignore this warning, and continue opening the project at your own risk.
Note
If, for some reason, novelWriter crashes, the lock file may remain even if there are no other instances keeping the project open. In such a case it is safe to ignore the lock file warning when re-opening the project.
Warning
If you choose to ignore the warning and continue opening the project, and multiple instances of the project are in fact open, you are likely to cause inconsistencies and create diverging project files, potentially resulting in loss of data and orphaned files. You are not likely to lose any actual text unless both instances have the same document open in the editor, and novelWriter will try to resolve inconsistencies the next time you open the project.
Folders, aside from root folders, have no structural significance to the project. When novelWriter is processing the documents in the novel, like for instance during export, these folders are ignored. Only the order of the documents themselves matter.
The folders are there purely as a way for the user to organise the documents in meaningful sections and to be able to collapse and hide them in the project tree when you're not working on those documents.
Tip
You can use folders to sort your scene documents into chapters. You will still need to add a chapter document as the first item of your chapter folder, and the scene documents as the following items.
New documents can be created from the Document menu, or by pressing CtrlN while in the project tree. This will create a new, empty document, and open the Item
Settings dialog where the document label and various other settings can be changed. This dialog can also be opened again later from either the Project menu, selecting Edit
Project Item, or by pressing CtrlE or F2 with the item selected.
The layout of the document is also defined here. For Novel documents, the full list of layout options are available. For non-Novel documents, only Note is available. See a_struct_layout for more details.
You can also select whether the document is by default included when building the project. This setting can be overridden in the Build Novel Project tool if you wish to include them anyway. This is covered in the a_export_files section. You can also toggle the included state of a document from the right-click context menu.
A character, word and paragraph count is maintained for each document, as well as for each section of a document following a header. The word count, and change of words in the current session, is displayed in the footer of any document open in the editor, and all stats are shown in the details panel below the project tree for any document selected in the project tree.
The word counts are not updated in real time, but run in the background every five seconds for as long as the document is being actively edited.
A total project word count is displayed in the status bar. The total count depends on the sum of the values in the project tree, which again depend on an up to date index. If the counts seem wrong, a full project word recount can be initiated by rebuilding the project's index. Either form the Tools menu, or by pressing F9.
The Project Settings can be accessed from the Project menu, or by pressing CtrlShift,. This will open a dialog box, with a set of tabs.
The Settings tab holds the project title and author settings.
The Working Title can be set to a different title than the Book Title. The difference between them is simply that the Working Title is used for the GUI (main window title) and for generating the backup files. The intention is that the Working
Title should remain unchanged throughout the project, otherwise the name of exported files and backup files may change too.
The Book Title and Book Authors settings are currently not used for anything, so setting then is just for the benefit of the author. Future features may be using them, and they are exported on some export formats in the Build Novel Project tool.
If your project is in a different language than your main spell checking is set to, you can override the default spell checking language here. You can also override the automatic backup setting.
This tab presents an overview of technical meta data for the project. It states where on your file system the project is saved, how may times it has been saved, how many folders and documents it contains, and how many words exist in the entire project.
Each document or folder of type Novel can be given a status level, signified by a coloured icon, and each document or folder of the remaining types can be given an importance level. These are colour coded icons and labels that can be applied to each document or folder.
These are purely there for the user's convenience, and you are not required to use them for any other features to work. No other part of novelWriter accesses this information. The intention is to use these to indicate at what stage of completion each novel document is, or how important the content of a note is to the plot. You don't have to use them this way, that's just what they were intended for, but you can make them whatever you want.
Note
The status or importance level currently in use by one or more documents cannot be deleted, but they can be edited.
A set of automatically replaced keywords can be added in this tab. The keywords in the left column will be replaced by the text in the right column when documents are opened in the viewer. They will also be applied to exports.
The auto-replace feature will replace text in angle brackets that are in this list. The syntax highlighter will add an alternate colour to text marching the syntax, but it doesn't check if the text is in this list.
Note
A keyword cannot contain spaces. The angle brackets are added by default, and when used in the text are a part of the keyword to be replaced. This is to ensure that parts of the text aren't unintentionally replaced by the content of the list.
An automatic backup system is built into novelWriter. In order to use it, a backup path to where the backup files are to be stored must be provided in Preferences.
Backups can be run automatically when a project is closed, which also implies it is run when the application itself is closed. Backups are date stamped zip files of the entire project folder, and are stored in a subfolder of the backup path. The subfolder will have the same name as the project Working Title set in a_proj_settings.
The backup feature, when configured, can also be run manually from the Tools menu. It is also possible to disable automated backup for a given project in Project
Settings.
Note
For the backup to be able to run, the Working Title must be set in Project Settings. This value is used to generate the folder name for the zip files. Without it, the backup will not run at all, but it will produce a warning message.
When you work on a project, a log file records when you opened it, when you closed it, and the total word counts of your novel documents and notes at the end of the session. You can view this file in the meta folder in the directory where you saved your project. The file is named sessionStats.log.
A tool to view the content of this file is available in the Tools menu under Writing Statistics. You can also launch it by pressing F6.
The tool will show a list of all your sessions, and a set of filters to apply to it. You can also export the filtered data to a JSON file or to a CSV file that can be opened by a spreadsheet application like for instance Libre Office Calc.