Suggest changes instead of making them

This page is about the Writing and Suggesting switch at the top of the editor. In Writing, what you type goes straight into the book. In Suggesting, every change you make is marked as a suggestion instead, to be accepted or rejected later—handy when you're revising a co-author's chapter, or you want to try a cut without committing to it.

Switch modes

At the top of the editor, click Writing or Suggesting. That's all it changes: what your next keystroke does. Nothing you've already written is touched.

On a phone, the choice sits in the header as Write, Suggest and Outline.

Screenshot: the top of the editor with the Writing / Suggesting switch, Suggesting selected, and a suggested change in the text below.

Write remembers your choice for each book, in this browser, so if you like to revise in Suggesting, it'll be waiting that way next time.

What a suggestion looks like

While you're suggesting, words you add are underlined and words you delete are struck through rather than removed, all in your color. Keep typing and your changes in one spot stay together as a single suggestion—backspacing over a sentence is one suggestion, not forty.

If you change your mind about something you suggested, delete it: removing your own suggested words takes them away for real.

In a text-message exchange

Inside an exchange, a suggestion is a whole bubble rather than single words. The moment you change a bubble—type in it, change who sent it, add or remove a pause—the bubble as it was stays put, faded and struck through, and your version appears just below it, ringed in your color. Keep typing and you're editing that same new bubble; there's only ever one copy.

• A new message (Enter) is ringed in your color too.
• Deleting a message leaves it in place, struck through, until the author decides.
• Splitting or joining bubbles strikes the old ones and suggests the new ones together, as one change.
• Taking out the whole exchange (the × above it) fades the exchange and strikes it out.
• Changed your mind? Undo takes it all back. If you type and then backspace until the bubble reads as it did, the suggestion disappears by itself.

A struck bubble can't be typed in—clicking one points the review rail at it instead. Who the exchange is with and its style still apply right away, like a paragraph style, so editors can't change those.

In the review rail, a changed bubble reads as the message with the words that changed marked, and accepting keeps your version while rejecting brings back the original.

Screenshot: an exchange in Suggesting with one bubble struck through and faded, the new version ringed in color below it, and the review rail showing "changed a message."

What isn't tracked

Suggesting is about the words. A few things still happen right away, even in Suggesting:

• Starting a new paragraph, or joining two.
• Bold, italic and the other formatting in the selection bar.
• Paragraph styles, like centering a line or setting off a letter.

Your reviewer still sees every word that changed; it's only the shape around the words that goes in as you make it.

Editors always suggest

Someone you've invited as an editor works in Suggesting all the time; their Writing button is greyed out, with a note that editors suggest and the author accepts or rejects. That way their whole pass comes to you as changes you can review one by one. (Because paragraph styles aren't tracked, editors can't change those—they can leave a comment instead.)

Reviewing what's been suggested

Suggestions—yours, an editor's or an AI's—are listed in the review rail on the right, where you accept or reject each one. See Review suggestions and comments.