# Write, Outline and Preview

The editor has three ways of looking at your book, and you can flip between them at any time from the **Write · Outline · Preview** switch in the toolbar. This page explains what each is for.

![Work bar screenshot.png](https://help.authortools.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-10/work-bar-screenshot.png)

*Screenshot: the toolbar's Work group, with the Write · Outline · Preview switch and the Notes, Codex and Listen buttons beside it.*

### Write

Where you'll spend most of your time: one scene at a time, on the page, as it will print. Pick a scene in the manuscript list on the left and write.

### Outline

The whole book on one screen, as a plan. Each chapter shows its title and a line for what happens in it; under it, each scene has a row with its title, point of view, when and where it happens, a status (**Draft**, **Revised** or **Final**), a short synopsis, and its word count.

Everything in the outline can be typed into directly, so it works however you plan:

- **If you outline chapter by chapter,** fill in each chapter's synopsis and leave the scenes to their titles.
- **If you outline scene by scene,** add empty scenes and write a synopsis for each. They sit in the outline, ready to be drafted later.

You can also rearrange the book here:

- **Drag a scene** to anywhere in the book, including into another chapter.
- **Drag a chapter** by its handle. It joins the part of whatever it lands beside.
- **Add a scene** puts an empty one at the end of a chapter. A thin line appears between any two chapters when you hover there; click it to add a chapter in between.

Click a scene's title to open it in **Write**. Nothing in the outline prints; it's yours.

![Outline Screenshot.png](https://help.authortools.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-10/outline-screenshot.png)

*Screenshot: the Outline view with two chapters, their synopses, and the scene rows showing POV, When, Where, status and word counts.*

#### The outline beside the page

If you'd like the outline in view while you write, turn on **Outline at the side** from the **Show** menu in the toolbar. A slimmer version sits in a rail beside the page.

### Preview

Your pages exactly as they'll print, many at a time, like zooming out in a word processor to see the shape of things. It's the same typesetting the print PDF uses, so a chapter opening, a picture or a stray line at the end of a chapter looks here just as it will in the book.

- Preview opens on whatever you have open in **Write**: the front- or back-matter section you're looking at, otherwise your chapter. Pick a chapter, a section or the whole book to preview something else. An omnibus with nothing open asks first, since the whole omnibus is every page of every book in it.
- The size slider zooms the pages in and out.
- Click a page to open the scene that's on it in **Write**.

Preview takes a moment to set the pages, especially for the whole book. While it works, it tells you about how many pages there are and roughly how long they'll take, with a clock of the time so far. The time is a guess the first time, and learns from how fast your previews have actually set.

#### A line or two alone at the end of a chapter

When the whole book is previewed, a **Fit** bar lists any chapter that ends with a line or two alone on its last page, with a few paragraphs that could pull it back (**Tighten**) or push it on (**Loosen**). Click one and Write sets that paragraph a hair tighter or looser, sets that chapter again, and puts it back into the pages in front of you in a few seconds. The chapter's line in the Fit bar then says whether it worked.

- A nudge belongs to the page setup you made it in. Tightening a paragraph in your 6 × 9 omnibus leaves the same book's 5.25 × 8 paperback exactly as it was.
- If the chapter now runs a page shorter or longer, the pages after it move along but keep their old page numbers until you click **Set the whole book again**. A note above the pages says so.
- A nudge is one small step, so a paragraph you've tightened shows **Tightened** with **Undo** beside it instead of offering to tighten it again.
- If you've tried the tightenings and the line is still alone, click **Clear all tightenings** under the chapter to take them all off at once, then try loosening instead. The same works the other way round.
- You can also take a nudge off in **Write**: put the cursor in the paragraph and use the **Paragraph** menu.