Write it here.Take it anywhere.

Which format for which job

Every format exists for a reason, and picking the right one saves you an afternoon of fixing. An editor or agent will almost always want a Word file. A read-through on the sofa wants an EPUB on your e-reader or phone, because reading your own book the way a reader will is the best way to catch what you can no longer see on screen. A printed proof copy for marking up wants a PDF at a real book size.

Authrot exports all of them from the same manuscript, so you never maintain two copies. The files are put together in your browser, from the project as it stands when you export. A useful habit at the end of each draft: export an EPUB, put it on your phone or e-reader, and read the book in one or two sittings as a stranger would, noting what snags. Then fix it in the studio, where the bible and history are, and export again.

• EPUB: an e-book for Apple Books, Kobo, Kindle and other readers
• PDF: a 6 × 9 in book with contents and page numbers
• Word: chapter headings Word’s navigation pane can use
• Markdown: headings and emphasis, for other tools and sites
• Plain text: just the words

Your book’s look comes with it

Chapter headings are part of a book’s personality: “Chapter Seven” in small caps with an ornament beneath, or a bare numeral sunk a third of the way down the page. In Authrot you design them once, with heading templates, number styles from 1 to I to first, case, small caps, font, alignment and sinkage, and the export draws them the way the editor does.

Scene breaks are drawn in your project’s chosen ornament. An ornament you uploaded as an image is drawn once as a picture so that every format can carry it. One honest caveat: the PDF uses a bundled typeface that lacks many decorative glyphs, so an unusual text ornament may appear as asterisks there. Using an image ornament avoids it.

The body text is a different matter. Your manuscript font is a writing choice, kept in the studio, and each format sets the prose in its own way: Word in Georgia, the PDF in its bundled face, and the EPUB in a plain serif that the reader’s app or device can override, as e-readers are meant to. What travels is the structure: headings, scene breaks, italics, bold, quotes and lists.

What’s inside the EPUB

The EPUB holds a title page, a table of contents, and each chapter as its own section with its heading, so a reading app can jump between chapters. When a file holds several books, the contents group the chapters under each one. Only the chapters of the story go in: alternate takes you didn’t pick, notes and outlines stay in the studio.

What it doesn’t include is the business end of publishing: a cover image, an ISBN, retailer metadata. Those belong to whichever service you publish through, and most of them add those details in their own forms. Treat the export as a clean manuscript e-book for reading, review and handing on.

Check it before you upload anywhere

Every retailer and distributor has its own rules for files, and they change. Authrot doesn’t check an export against any store’s requirements, so don’t assume a file is ready for sale because it opens on your e-reader. Before you submit, open the file in the store’s own previewer, and run an EPUB through a validator such as EPUBCheck.

Many authors use the export as the input to a dedicated formatting or publishing tool rather than the final file, and that is a good workflow: Word or Markdown out of Authrot, final typesetting elsewhere. Your manuscript stays the single source, and you can export again whenever you revise. Because an export takes moments, many authors make a fresh one for each round of edits and keep the old files as dated snapshots.

One book, the whole series, or one chapter

A project can hold a whole series, so the export asks which books to include, and whether to make one file or one per book. Export a single chapter on its own when you want to send an editor just the scene you’re stuck on: it opens the file with no title page or contents.

Exports come from the branch you’re on, so you can export the alternate ending you wrote on a branch and send it to a beta reader without touching the main book. Every role on a project can export, from co-author to viewer, so a beta reader you’ve invited can take a copy to read offline. Only the chapters of the story go into a book: a chapter with alternate takes exports the one the book uses, and you can still export any single take on its own when you want a second opinion on it.

Take everything with you

A novel is more than its chapters. Alongside the manuscript you can include the story bible, your notes and outlines, the Foundations and chapter plans, the story map, pictures, and narration as MP3s. The extras come as JSON files with the pictures and audio themselves, ready for another tool or your own archive.

That matters most for a series. Book four is far easier to write when the facts of books one to three travel with you, whether to a series bible you keep for yourself or to a co-author picking up the world. And if you ever want everything, your account can download all of your data as a file whenever you like. Your work should never be stuck anywhere, including here.