Insanitomeium Help

Getting Started

After signing in, you land on the main workspace. If this is your first time, your binder is empty. Click the ＋ button to create your first project and get started writing!

• Click the ＋ button at the top of the binder (left sidebar) to create a new project. Type a title and press Enter.
• Click the ⊞ button to open the Project Manager, where you can rename, archive, delete, import, or export projects, and manage your labels and statuses.
• Switch between projects using the dropdown at the top of the binder.
• Every new project starts with a Story folder containing a Chapter and a Scene, plus a Notes folder for Characters and Research — click the starter Scene and start typing.

The Top Menu

The bar across the top of the workspace is mission control. From left to right: the app name and your current project, the binder toggle, the view switcher, your session progress, the sprint timer, sharing and export actions, and the help, theme, and account menus.

• Binder toggle — the small panel icon hides or shows the binder to give your writing more horizontal space.
• View switcher — flips between Editor, Split, and Corkboard. Split and Corkboard are independent: you can have a corkboard open in one split pane while you write in the other. Clicking Editor returns to a single plain editor.
• Session pill — shows words written this session against your session goal, with a tiny progress bar. Click it for a fuller picture and an Edit targets… shortcut (see Goals & Targets).
• Sprint — starts a timed writing sprint; the countdown ticks right in the bar (see Sprint Timer).
• Share and Compile — send chapters to beta readers or export your manuscript.
• ? Help menu — this documentation, What's New (a dot appears when there are updates you haven't seen), the keyboard shortcuts reference, and bug reporting.
• Theme button and account menu — cycle the look of the app, open your profile, or sign out.

On phones, these actions live in the ··· menu at the top-right, and the binder opens with the ☰ button.

The Binder

The binder is the left sidebar that holds your entire project as a tree of documents.

Document types

• Scene — a leaf document you write in. Holds rich text and counts words.
• Chapter — a container for scenes. Shown with an open-book icon. Use chapters to group the scenes that make up a narrative chapter.
• Folder — a generic container. Use folders to organise characters, research, or anything outside the story itself.
• Character — opens with a pre-filled character sheet template.
• Research — opens with a pre-filled research note template.

Adding documents

• Right-click on any blank area of the binder to create a top-level document (New Scene, New Chapter, New Folder, etc.).
• Right-click on an existing chapter or folder to add a child document inside it (Add Scene, Add Chapter, Add Folder, etc.).

Renaming and deleting

• Double-click a document title to rename it inline. Press Enter to save or Esc to cancel.
• Right-click a document and choose Rename for the same effect.
• Right-click and choose Delete to permanently remove a document and all its children.
• Quick export — right-click any scene and choose Quick Export to download just that document, without opening the full compile dialog.

Drag & Drop

Every document in the binder is draggable. Click and hold any row, then drag it to a new position.

• Drop onto a chapter or folder to move the document inside it. The chapter or folder expands automatically.
• Drop between documents at the same level to reorder them. The order you set here is the order used during compilation.
• Corkboard cards are draggable too — reordering cards reorders the binder, and vice versa.

The Editor & Toolbar

Select any scene, character, or research document to open it in the editor. The compact toolbar keeps every formatting tool on one row.

• Paragraph style — the first dropdown switches between Body text and Headings 1–3.
• Font — the second dropdown previews each typeface, including OpenDyslexic, a dyslexia-friendly option. The font applies to the whole document view.
• Text size — the − / + stepper changes the size of the selected text in points.
• B / I / U / S — bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough. The A and pen buttons open text-color and highlight swatches; the small bar under each shows the current choice.
• Lists, alignment, and indent — bullet and numbered lists, an alignment dropdown, and indent/outdent buttons that also nest and un-nest list items.
• Insert — the speech-bubble adds an annotation to the selected text; the grid inserts a table (row and column controls appear while your cursor is inside one); the quote marks toggle a blockquote.
• ⋯ More tools — superscript, subscript, clear formatting, line spacing, plus Version history, fullscreen (distraction-free) mode, print, and the keyboard shortcuts reference.
• Right cluster — the annotations panel toggle, a zoom stepper (the percentage resets zoom when clicked; zoom is view-only and never changes your export), the live word count with estimated reading time — plus the word and character count of the current selection — and the save-status pill.

Below the toolbar, the Synopsis bar holds a short summary that appears on the corkboard index card, and the Toolbar toggle collapses the formatting row when you want a barer page.

Inline Annotations

Annotations are margin notes attached to a passage of text — for revision reminders, research questions, or anything you want to tell your future self without touching the prose.

• Create — select some text and click the speech-bubble button in the toolbar. The annotated passage is tinted and a note card opens beside it, ready to type into.
• Edit — click a card's text to edit it in place. Notes save when you click away.
• Resolve — dims the note and its tint once it's handled; Unresolve brings it back. Delete asks before removing the note for good.
• Cards sit beside the exact line they annotate — in the margin on wide screens, in a slim panel otherwise. The 🗨 button in the top-right of the toolbar hides or shows them.
• Annotations never appear in exports or share links unless you explicitly opt in — see Compile & Export and Share with Beta Readers.

Version History

Insanitomeium quietly snapshots every document as you write, so an accidental deletion — or a rewrite you regret — is never permanent.

• Open the ⋯ menu at the right end of the toolbar and choose Version history.
• Click any snapshot to preview that draft's full text.
• Restore this version replaces the current text with the snapshot. Your current text is snapshotted first, so a restore is always reversible — and plain Ctrl+Z works too.
• Snapshots are captured automatically a few minutes apart while you write; identical saves are skipped. Recent versions are kept per document for a generous window, oldest pruned first.

Autosave & Sync

Changes are saved automatically as you type, a couple of seconds after your last keystroke. You never need to press a save button — the pill in the toolbar's corner shows Saving…, Saved, or Offline.

• If the live connection drops, the editor falls back to regular saving and shows Offline. It reconnects automatically.
• Opening the same project in two browser tabs keeps both in sync — edits in one tab appear in the other within seconds.

Split Editor

On desktop, click Split in the view switcher to open a second pane side by side — reference an outline while you draft, or compare two scenes.

• Click a pane (or its ○ / ● target button) to focus it — the focused pane receives the next document you click in the binder.
• Drag the divider between the panes to resize them (from 20% to 80%). Double-click it to reset to an even split; with the divider focused, the arrow keys nudge it too.
• With corkboard view on, a pane holding a chapter or folder shows its corkboard while the other pane keeps your text — outline on one side, prose on the other.
• Click Editor in the view switcher (or Split again) to return to a single pane.

The Corkboard

With a chapter or folder selected in the binder, click Corkboard in the view switcher to see its children as index cards.

• Each card shows the document's title, synopsis, word count, label stripe, and status badge.
• Drag cards to reorder them — the new order is saved immediately and reflected in the binder.
• Edit a card's synopsis by clicking into the text area on the card.
• Click the label stripe or status badge to assign a label or status right on the card.
• Double-click a chapter or folder card to drill down into its own children; use the breadcrumb to climb back up.
• Click Editor in the view switcher to return to the text.

Labels & Statuses

Every document can have a colored label (point-of-view, subplot, anything you like) and a status (how done it is). Both show as coloured dots in the binder and on corkboard cards.

• Right-click a document and choose Set Label… or Set Status… — or click a corkboard card's label stripe or status badge. The picker opens right where you clicked.
• Pick an existing entry, create a new one (name and colour), or choose None to clear. Clicking the current assignment also clears it.
• New projects come with three default statuses: Not Started, In Progress, and Complete. Rename, recolor, or delete these — and manage labels — from the Project Manager (⊞).

Goals & Targets

The session pill in the top menu keeps your daily goal in view while you write: words written this session, your session goal, and a progress bar.

• Click the pill for the popover: session progress, your overall draft progress against the project's word target, and Edit targets…, which opens the full targets panel.
• In the targets panel, set your session goal inline, and use Set goal → to give the project a total word target and optional deadline — the panel then shows the daily pace needed to finish on time.
• Session progress resets at midnight; your writing history is tracked on your Profile page.

Sprint Timer

Sprints are short, focused writing bursts against the clock. Click Sprint in the top menu to open the timer.

• Pick a duration preset (or type your own), optionally set a word goal for the sprint, and press Start.
• The countdown ticks right in the Sprint button, so you can hide the panel and just write. Words written during the sprint are counted live.
• Pause, resume, or reset any time; a chime sounds when time is up and the panel reopens with your sprint word count.

Share with Beta Readers

Send chapters to readers as a clean, read-only web link — no account needed on their end, no attachments, and your project stays private.

• Click Share in the top menu, tick the chapters and scenes to include, and reorder them if needed — the link shows a snapshot of your text as it is right now.
• Choose an expiry (7, 30, 90 days, or never) and an optional password.
• Tick Include annotations to add your margin notes as numbered endnotes at the end of each chapter. Off by default — your notes stay private unless you choose otherwise.
• Copy the link immediately — for security it is shown only once. The manage list shows each link's views and lets you revoke it at any time.
• Readers get a comfortable chapter-by-chapter reading page with a contents menu — nothing to install.

Compile & Export

Click Compile in the top menu to turn your selected scenes into a finished file.

• The binder tree is shown with checkboxes — check the scenes to include. Drag scenes within the export list to change their order without affecting the binder.
• Choose an output format:
  • PDF — print-ready PDF.
  • DOCX — Microsoft Word document.
  • ePub — e-reader format; scenes under a chapter are merged into one book chapter.
  • Markdown — plain Markdown text file.
  • Manuscript — standard manuscript format DOCX with title page, running header, and double-spaced 12pt Courier. Author info is set on your Profile page.
• Include annotations renders your margin notes as numbered endnotes after each chapter (not available for Manuscript, which follows strict submission formatting).
• Need everything at once? The Project Manager's ⬇ ZIP button downloads the whole project as a ZIP that mirrors your binder folders, with each document as TXT, RTF, or DOCX.

Quick Document Jump

Press Ctrl+G anywhere in the app to open the Quick Jump panel.

• Start typing any part of a document title — matching results appear instantly as you type.
• Press ↑ / ↓ to move through results, then Enter to open the highlighted document.
• Click any result to open it directly.
• Press Esc to dismiss the panel without navigating.

Find & Replace

Press Ctrl+H to open the Find & Replace panel. Unlike a single-document search, this searches every document in the active project at once.

• Type a search term and press Enter or click Search. Results are grouped by document, each showing a short context snippet with the matched term highlighted.
• Click any context snippet to navigate directly to that document.
• Two search options are available:
  • Case sensitive — when off (the default), "the" matches "The" and "THE". Turn it on to match exact capitalisation only.
  • Whole word — when on, "cast" will not match inside "broadcast".
• Replace in doc — the button beside each document replaces all matches in that document only, then re-runs the search.
• Replace All — replaces all matches across every matched document. A progress indicator shows Replacing… N / N while it works.
• Leave the Replace field empty to delete all occurrences of the search term.

Themes & Appearance

The theme button in the top menu cycles through three looks — the icon always previews where the next click takes you.

• Light — the clean default.
• Dark — easy on the eyes for night writing.
• Tome — ink, parchment, and gold, for when the manuscript deserves a grimoire.
• Your choice is saved to your account and follows you across devices.
• Independent of the theme, the editor offers per-document fonts, text size, line spacing, and a view-only zoom — see The Editor & Toolbar.

Updates & Bug Reports

• What's New — a dot on the ? Help button means something shipped since your last visit. The News & Updates page explains every release in plain English, with how-to guides.
• Report a bug — in the Help menu. Describe what went wrong and attach up to three screenshots; images are automatically scrubbed of hidden photo data before they leave your browser, and the report shows you exactly what it includes before you send it.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The full list is also available inside the app — open the ? Help menu and choose Keyboard shortcuts.