NOTE: We are currently in an invite-only alpha testing phase. If you'd like to participate, please contact [email protected].

Introduction

Check Section Breaks (Dashboard)

When Hederis imports your manuscript, it'll attempt to identify and mark every section break in your file.* You can quickly review and make basic changes to these section breaks right from your Project Dashboard.

* NOTE: During the alpha-testing phase, the AI that locates section breaks has not been turned on. The Hederis import transformations will automatically mark the beginning of every file as a new chapter, but it is up to each user to change those default breaks to the correct break type, and to add additional section breaks as needed via the Advanced Review Pane (see next section).

When you import a new Word .docx file, on your Project Dashboard you should see a list of the sections and chapters that were found in the file. To inspect each break, click the "Check Section Break" button below the section name. You will be presented with the following options:

Change type...

There are a number of book section types that you can choose from (read about them here: Style Guide: Section Breaks). To change the type of break used, simply click this button, and click on the name of the correct section type. You should see the section type (in parentheses) immediately change. Click Save to record your change.

Move up, Move down

Each section break is surrounded by a few lines of text that occur both before and after the break. If the break has been inserted at a slightly wrong location, you can move it up or down within the limits of these provided paragraphs. If the break has been inserted at a drastically wrong location (i.e., if you need to move it more than a few paragraphs up or down), then you should use the Advanced Review Pane (see below).

Note that all text paragraphs must occur inside a section break. This means that the first thing in your manuscript will always be a section break, however you may use any break type that you choose here.

Save

Saves your changes.

Open advanced review pane...

If you need to do more than the simple options provided on the Project Dashboard, you can click through to an advanced style editor, as described next.

The Advanced Review Pane

The Advanced Review Pane is your one-stop shop for editing your document styles and section breaks. You can insert new section breaks, wrap paragraphs in wrappers (for example, to create an extract block, or a sidebar), and change the tags used for individual paragraphs so that your file is both semantically correct and ready to be designed (see the Introduction above for more on the importance of semantic tagging).

When you open the Advanced Review Pane, you have a limited menu that will expand once you select a paragraph from your file (see the "Click a style to make changes" documentation below).

View Word Formatting

Hederis preserves a selection of the Word .docx formatting from your uploaded file, and you can choose to display that formatting, to help you more easily navigate your file.

Note that none of this formatting will be applied to the final, designed book in Hederis. The formatting is only preserved here in the Advanced Review Pane, to help you identify paragraphs that may have been styled differently in your source Word file.

You can also use the "Find more like this" option to get a list of paragraphs that used similar formatting (or even used the same style name in Word)--see below.

Save

Save your work! Currently, Hederis does not auto-save, so be sure to click the Save button at regular intervals.

Undo

If you make a change you don't like, you can Undo it by clicking this button. Keep clicking the Undo button to sequentially undo all the changes you've made, one by one, through your last 20 changes.

Click a style to make changes

To start updating the styles and sections in your file, click on the style name of the paragraph you want to edit. If you want to add a new section break, click on the style name of the paragraph that marks the start of the new section (i.e., the first paragraph within your new section). If you want to add a new wrapper, click on the style name of the first paragraph that should appear within the wrapper, and then use the "Move up" and "Move down" buttons to either move paragraphs inside the wrapper, or move the Wrapper start and end tags so that they surround your desired paragraphs. See the sections below for more details on working with paragraphs, section breaks, and wrappers.

Find more like this

Once you've selected a paragraph, click this button to open a panel with a list of any other paragraphs in your file that have similar formatting to your selection. This can help with quickly pinpointing all the the chapter titles in your file, for example.

The paragraphs are matched based on their formatting in the Word file--for example, if they had the same font size, text alignment, and even used the same Word style name. Note that the paragraphs must be an exact match to the Word formatting of your selected paragraph, so be very careful that you haven't missed any paragraphs that might have had slight styling differences in your Word file.

Navigate through the list of matches using the "Previous" and "Next" buttons, or by clicking on the paragraph text in your list of matches. When you navigate to one of the matches, that paragraph will become the active selection, and any changes you make from the options in the far left sidebar will be applied to that selection.

Working with Sections

When working with section breaks, you have a few options. If you want to insert a new section break, see the "Working with Paragraphs" documentation below.

Change break type

Change the type of section to one of the provided section options. These options correspond to standard book components, and you can read more about each type of section and how to use them here: Style Guide: Section Breaks.

Move up, Move down

If your section break is in the wrong location, use these buttons to move the break up or down, one paragraph at a time.

Delete

Deletes the section break entirely. The section contents will be merged with the previous section in your book.

Working with Wrappers

Your options for working with wrappers are similar to your section break options. If you want to insert a new wrapper, see the "Working with Paragraphs" documentation below.

Change wrapper type

Change the type of wrapper to one of the provided wrapper options. These options correspond to standard book components, and you can read more about each type of wrapper and how to use them here: Style Guide: Wrappers.

Move up, Move down

If the start or end of your wrapper block is in the wrong location, use these buttons to move the start or end delimeter up or down, one paragraph at a time.

Helpful tip: If you have multiple paragraphs that need to be moved inside of a wrapper, instead of moving each paragraph up or down one by one so that it is inside the wrapper, select one of the wrapper delimeters and move it up or down to enclose your paragraphs.

Delete

Deletes the wrapper entirely. Any paragraphs inside the wrapper will moved into the main section flow and will not be deleted.

Working with Paragraphs

Insert new section break

Use this to add a new section break above the selected paragraph. Choose from one of the provided section options, all of which correspond to standard book components; you can read more about each type of section and how to use them here: Style Guide: Section Breaks.

Insert new wrapper

Use this to add a new wrapper container above the selected paragraph. Choose from one of the provided wrapper options, all of which correspond to standard book components; you can read more about each type of wrapper and how to use them here: Style Guide: Wrappers.

Change paragraph type

Each paragraph should be tagged with a style category that reflects the type of content within the paragraph. Most novels don't contain much more than Chapter titles and Plain text paragraphs, but sometimes a book contains extra types of content, like poems, sub sections, letters, and so on, and those paragraphs should be tagged accordingly. To change the style used for a paragraph, select the paragraph by clicking its style name, and then choose the correct style name from this dropdown. You can read more about paragraph style options here: Style Guide: Paragraphs & Blocks.

Quick Apply...

This handy button lets you apply the last paragraph style you chose to any new selection. It's a handy tool for applying the same paragraph style to a multiple paragraphs in a row. To use it, select a paragraph and then apply your chosen style. You'll see the "Quick Apply" button update to show that style name. Then, click the button to turn on "Quick Apply" mode. Now all you need to do is select another paragraph, and that style will automatically be applied to your selection without any further action required from you. To turn off "Quick Apply" mode, simply click the "Quick Apply" button again.

Move up, Move down

Move the selected paragraph up or down, one paragraph at a time.

Delete

Delete the selected paragraph.