Writer Journal Official

Quick Start

Create document

To create a new document, simply click the document icon at the very bottom of the screen, a new document will be created under the current folder and it will be automatically loaded into the Editor page , so that you can start editing it right away. (See the screenshot)

Create Folder

To create a new folder, click the folder icon at the bottom of the screen, give it a title and description (optional) and click OK. (See the screenshots)

Edit a document

To edit a document, simply click its Title or Preview text area to quickly load it into Editor page. (See the screenshot)

Undo and redo

After editing your document, you may find that you just made a mistake and you want to fix it, you can use the undo button to undo the mistake. (See the screenshot)

Format your text

Here are the formatting tools that you can use to quickly format your document. These tools are generally divided into two big categories. Namely character style and paragraph style.

Character style

Character styles are 8, there are 4 common ones, namely bold , italic , underline and ~~strike-through~~ . And there are foreground color and background color styles, link and comment. These styles are applied to characters, hence the name "character style".

How to apply bold, italic, underline and strike-through style to your text?

There are two ways to apply it to your text, first is "toggle before input" method, it's before you start typing your text, you click one of these characters styles buttons to toggle it on, and after you finished typing your text, you click it again to toggle it off. Second is "toggle after input" method, it's when you have already typed your text, and you want a specific text section to be styled, you just need to select that section and toggle the character style button on. (See the screenshot)

How to apply foreground and background colors to your text?

By default, foreground and background color options are turned off. User will have to enable it in the tools settings panel at the very bottom in the editor page by clicking the gear icon. (See the screenshots)

Load Welcome Writer document into the editor page.
Swipe the tools panel to the very end and click the gear icon to navigate to Editor Tools page.
In the Editor Tools page, user can enable or disable formatting tools or use drag and drop gesture to reorder them to their preferences. Find “Foreground color” and “Background color” options and enable them. Click √ to save the changes.

After enabling these options, user will have to select a color by clicking the foreground color button , and select a color in the foreground color dialog window, click color blue and then click “Select”.

The selected color will be reflected on the foreground color button.

Now, just like applying bold or italic effect to the selected text, apply foreground color style by using “toggle after input” method. Select a portion of your text, and click foreground color button to apply the selected color.(See the screenshots)

Note that background color style works just the same way, users can easily apply a background color style to their text by following the exact procedure.

How to attach link or comment to a specific portion of your text?

Just like applying foreground color style, users can attach a URL link or comment to their text. By using the “toggle after input” method, like foreground and background color styles, users have to enable the link and comment style options first in the Editor Tools page, because these options are turned off by default.

After enabling these options in the Editor Tools page, they will be accessible to users in the Editor Tools Panel in the Editor page.
Now, select a portion of your text and then click Link Style Button to attach a URL link to the selected text. Enter the URL address and click OK to attach. (See the screenshots)

Note that attaching a comment works just the same way, users can easily attach a comment to their text by following the exact procedure.

Paragraph style

There are 9 paragraph styles in total, followings are their names and corresponding icons.

First line indent
Paragraph indent
Paragraph alignment
Header 1
Header 2
Header 3
Bullet list
Numbered list
Block quote

All of these 9 paragraph styles are applied to paragraph, hence the name Paragraph style.

To apply any one of these paragraph styles to one of your paragraphs. You only need to put your cursor inside the paragraph you want to style, and toggle on one of these paragraph style buttons to apply the style. (See the screenshot)

Note that ending a Paragraph style requires you to hit "Enter key" 2 times subsequently. Except the Header styles which only require one "Enter key". (See the screenshot)

Insert separator line or page-break

To insert a separator line or page-break (turned off by default, users have to enable it in the Editor Tools page), simply click the separator line icon or page-break icon at the end of your paragraph. It will automatically insert a separator line or a page-break at the end of your current paragraph.(See the screenshot)

Insert an image

Click the image insertion button, choose an image from your gallery app. Crop and click ✓ to insert. (see the screenshots)

Outline

Ever felt frustrated when you have voluminous text and it's becoming harder to navigate to different sections? Writer Journal's outline feature is designed just for that. Outline feature collects all header sections in your text and reconstruct them into an easy to navigate graph and help you quickly navigate to specific header section.

Note that outline feature only works if your text contains at least one header text. If a bigger header is followed by smaller header, it will reconstruct them into a tree-like structure where smaller header is considered to be a branch of the bigger header.

Please follow the steps below to use the outline feature correctly. (See the screenshots)

Open a document that has at least one header text, for example, we opened the Welcome Writer document for better explanation.
Click More in the Editor page to open document options menu
Note that the document has many header sections, now click outline in the editor page.
A window will popup containing all the headers sections, click on one of the headers will bring your cursor position right to the beginning of that header. Convenient and practical.

Find and replace

You can use find and replace function in Writer Journal to find specific words or a portion of text, also replace it with something else. Please follow the steps below (See the screenshots)

Open a document to try find and replace features.
Click More in the Editor page to open Document options menu
Click Find to open Find and replace window
Type a keyword and click the next icon to find the next matching text in the document, you can keep clicking it until the desired text is found.
Click the down arrow icon at the left side to expand the window with replace feature appended.
Type a replacement text and click the next icon until you find the desired text to be replaced, click replace button to replace it.
Click close icon to close the find and replace window.

Focus mode

Sometimes you may find it hard to focus on what you are writing, Writer Journal comes with a feature called focus mode to help you stayed focused on your current paragraph or sentence. Please follow the steps below to write your masterpiece in focus mode. (See the screenshots)

Open a document to try focus mode feature
Click More in the Editor page to open Document options menu
Click Focus and select either sentence focus mode or paragraph focus mode based on your preference
Writer Journal will highlight your current sentence or paragraph and tone down the other parts, helping you stay focused on what you are actually writing with minimal distraction
Click Unfocus to turn it off

Export universal document file?

Users can either compile a single document or an entire folder containing multiple documents (or maybe call them chapters or scenes) into a single merged universal document file (TXT, MD, HTML, PDF, WORD DOCX). Please See the screenshots:

1. Locate your document or folder that you want to compile in the Home page.

2. Click the "more options" button to show the "document options" menu window.

3. Select Export in the document options menu.

4. You will be directed to the Export page where you can reorder your documents and adjust the compile settings to control how your documents should be compiled.

5. Select your preferred compile file format.

6. Click the Export button to start the compile and export process.

7. Select where to save the compiled document file.

Compile settings

Sometimes users may want to compile their documents with some adjustments, for example, compile with a bigger font size or add extra margins to the print pages, these settings can be configured in the Compile settings page.

After navigating to the compile page. You can click the gears icon at the top right corner to reach the compile settings page. See the screenshots.

The followings are brief explanations for each setting:

Include title: when enabled, WriterJournal will automatically include the title of your document during compilation process. (Effective for all file types)

Justify text: when enabled, WriterJournal will automatically justify text for all paragraphs during compilation process. (Not effective for txt or markdown file)

Drop cap first paragraph: when enabled, WriterJournal will detect the first non heading and non listing paragraph and apply drop cap effect to its first letter. (Only effective for HTML,PDF file compilation)

Drop cap font size: adjust the font size used for drop cap effect. (Only effective for HTML,PDF file compilation)

Paper size: choose from popular standard paper sizes when compiling PDF file. (Only effective for PDF file compilation)

Line spacing: adjust the line spacing parameter when compiling PDF or HTML file. The line spacing is the distance between two separate lines. (Only effective for HTML,PDF file compilation)

Page margins: adjust the paper margins for print ready PDF document compilation. (Only effective for PDF file compilation)

Font size: adjust the base font size. (Only effective for PDF and HTML file compilation)

Multiple documents or entire folder compilation settings

Include cover image when compile folder: when compile an entire folder to which a cover image is attached, WriterJournal will automatically treat the cover image as the book cover page. (Only effective for PDF file compilation)

Start each document on new page: when enabled, WriterJournal will start each document on a new page if there are multiple documents to be compiled. (Only effective for PDF and Microsoft Word Docx file compilation)

Insert chapter divider: when enabled, WriterJournal will automatically insert chapter divider graphic to the document ending section. (Only effective for PDF and HTML file compilation)

Share

Writer Journal supports 2 types of sharing, namely text sharing and file sharing. You can share your document or folder either as text or as file.

Share single document as text

Please follow the steps below to share your document as text. (See the screenshots)

Locate your document in the Home page
Open Document options menu of that document
Click Share to navigate to Share Page
Select Share as plain text
Click Share button to start sharing

@muti-img(locateDocumentInHome.png,openDOMInHome.png,clickShareInDOMInHome.png, HighlightShareAsPlainTextAndShareBtnInSharePage.png,shareTextDialog.png)

Share single document as a file

Please follow the steps below to share your document as a file. (See the screenshots)

Locate your document in the Home page
Open Document options menu of that document
Click Share to navigate to Share Page.
Select Share as txt file
Click Share button to start sharing

@muti-img(locateDocumentInHome.png,openDOMInHome.png,clickShareInDOMInHome.png, HighlightShareAsTxtFileAndShareBtnInSharePage.png,TxtFileShareDialog.png)

Delete document

Thanks to Writer Journal's recovery zone feature, your deleted documents will be available for recovery unless the deleted documents is too much and exceed the recovery zone capacity. (You can set recovery zone capacity in the app settings). Please follow the steps below to delete a document. (See the screenshots)

Locate your document in the Home page
Open Document options menu of that document
Click Delete to move the document into recovery zone
Select yes to comfirm the deletion

@muti-img(locateDocumentInHome.png,openDOMInHome.png,clickTrashInDOMInHome.png,clickYesInTrashDialog.png)

Recover deleted document

You can find the deleted documents in the recovery zone page. Please follow the steps below to recover one of your deleted document. (See the screenshots)

Navigate to recovery zone page

Locate one of the deleted documents and click more to open options menu

Click recover and it will be restored back to its original place.

Move document or folder

Single move

To move a document or folder into another folder, please follow the steps below(See the screenshots)

First locate the document in the Home page
Open Document options menu
Click on move to open Choose location window
Choose your destination folder in this window to move your document or an entire folder into your destination folder.

Multiple move

To move multiple documents or folders, please follow the steps below(See the screenshots)

First locate one of your documents in the Home page
Open Document options menu of that document
Click on multiple to select multiple documents or folders
After selection, click on the three dots icon on the top right corner to open multiple options menu
Click on move to open Choose location window
You can choose your destination folder in this window to move your documents or folders into your destination folder

Clone document or folder

Single clone

You can clone a document or an entire folder by following the steps below(See the screenshots)

Locate your document or folder to be cloned
Click more options icon to open Document options menu
Click Clone to start cloning
Wait until the processing window closes
Your cloned document or folder will be automatically put into the same folder

Multiple clone

You can clone multiple documents or folders by following the steps below(See the screenshots)

First locate one of your documents in the Home page
Open Document options menu of that document
Click on multiple to select multiple documents or folders
After selection, click on the three dots icon on the top right corner to open multiple options menu
Click Clone to clone the selected documents or folders
Wait until the processing window closes
All of your cloned documents or folders will be automatically put into the same folder

Data backup & restore

Writer Journal introduces 2 types of local data backup mechanisms. Namely Manual backup and Auto backup, you can either backup your documents manually or setup an auto backup schedule to let Writer Journal backup your data periodically.

Manual backup

Please follow the following steps to backup your documents and export it as a single .wjb backup file.(See the screenshots)

Navigate to Data backup page
Under the manual backup tab, click backup to start the backup procedure
Select your destination folder and give your backup file a name and click save button

Note that you can also choose Google drive folder to save the backup file directly to your Google drive account. This way you can also restore it from another device very easily. (See the screenshots)

Auto backup

Please follow the following steps to setup an auto backup schedule. (See the screenshots)

Navigate to Settings page
Click Home folder if you haven't yet specified a home folder for Writer Journal
Select a folder for Writer Journal to use as a home folder, your auto backup files will be stored there, these files will not get deleted even if you accidentally deleted the app
Now still in Settings page, click Auto backup and select an appropriate auto backup interval, I selected hourly
Congratulations, you have successfully setup an auto backup schedule
Navigate to Data backup page
Under the Auto backup tab, you will find your auto backup files appear there once it started to backup your documents. The first backup file will appear after an hour in this example
You can click restore button to restore all of your documents
Click OK to start the restore process

Warning ⚠️, restore will delete all of your current documents and folders, always make sure you have backup your data before any restore process.