The Scratchpad

Every world has a Scratchpad: a place for writing that isn't part of a book yet. Warm up before a session, jot down a stray idea, try a scene three different ways, or run a writing sprint just for practice. It's kept apart from your manuscripts and your lorebook, so nothing you write there turns up in a book, an export or a lore page.

Find it

Open Manuscripts. The Scratchpad is the first row, there from the start, even before you've begun a manuscript. On a wide window it's also at the top of the Manuscripts panel in the sidebar, with its pages listed underneath.

Write on a page

The Scratchpad holds as many pages as you like, most recently edited first.

• Choose Start writing (or +, or + beside Scratchpad in the sidebar) for a new page.
• Give it a title if you like. Untitled pages are named by their opening words.
• Write as you would in a scene. Headings, lists and quotes are on the toolbar too, so a page can just as well be notes. Pages save as you type.

There are no lore mentions on the Scratchpad: typing @ is just an @, and nothing here links to your lorebook or shows up in a lore page's mentions.

You'll find pages in search (⌘P) too, marked as Scratchpad pages.

Words you write on a page count towards your Daily goal, your writing stats and the sprint under way. Start a sprint from the stopwatch button at the top of a page.

Move a page into a manuscript

When a page has grown into a scene, open its … menu (or right-click it in a list) and choose Move to manuscript…. Pick the manuscript, then the chapter: the page becomes a scene at the end of that chapter, with its title and text, and leaves the Scratchpad. Its words aren't counted a second time.

If the manuscript has no chapters yet, choose Start the first chapter and the page becomes its first scene.

Delete a page

Choose Delete page from its … menu or its row's menu. Choose Undo straight away to bring it back, or find it in Recently deleted for 30 days.

Sync and backups

Scratchpad pages are files in your library like everything else (scratchpad/ in the world's folder), so they sync and back up with it. If the same page is changed on two devices at once, you keep both: the second turns up as a "(conflicted copy)" page beside it.