Writing
The editor saves as you type. There is a small indicator near the top right that says Saved when everything is safely on disk.
Formatting
The usual shortcuts work: Ctrl+B bold, Ctrl+I italic, Ctrl+U underline. Headings, lists, block quotes and alignment are on the toolbar, and under Advanced options you will find spacing, indentation and special characters.
Arranging chapters and scenes
Drag anything in the manuscript list to move it. A scene can go into a different chapter, above or below another scene, or out to sit among the chapters. The line that appears while you drag shows exactly where it will land, and a drop that is not allowed is marked before you let go rather than after.
Dragging changes what something is, when it has to. Take a scene out to where the chapters live and it becomes a chapter. Drag a chapter into another chapter or into a scene and it becomes a scene, keeping whatever it contained. QuillArk says which happened, and the way back is always to drag it again — nothing here is one-way.
Grouping scenes inside scenes
A scene can hold scenes of its own, three levels deep in all: a scene, scenes within it, and scenes within those. That is room to build a scene out of its beats, and a beat out of its moments, without the outline turning into a maze. A fourth level is refused, and QuillArk says why.
This changes how your book is organised, not what it says. Compiling walks your manuscript in reading order and treats every scene alike, so a chapter whose scenes are grouped three deep exports exactly the same words, in the same order, with the same scene breaks, as one where they sit in a flat list. Grouping is for you, not for the reader.
Scene breaks
Use Insert → Scene break to place the break between scenes. It appears as a centred ornament, and each export renders it correctly for that format.
How it looks is part of the publishing preset, under Publishing → Typography →
Scene break. Choose one of the common markers — * * *, an asterism, a leaf, a
diamond — or type your own. # is what a manuscript submission wants.
You can also use a picture of your own: choose a PNG or an SVG and it is copied into the project’s Images folder, so the book stays self-contained and the ornament travels with it. Set how wide it should print, and the editor draws the same ornament at the same shape while you write.
Two formats cannot carry a picture. Plain text has no pictures at all, and QuillArk’s RTF does not embed them. Both fall back to the marker, and the export says so when it finishes rather than leaving you to find out later. PDF, EPUB, Word, OpenDocument, HTML and Markdown all keep the picture.
Images
Drag a picture into the page, or use Insert → Image. The file is copied into the project’s Images folder, so the book stays self-contained.
Select an image and a strip appears above the editor with four ways to place it:
| Layout | What it does |
|---|---|
| Above and below | Its own centred block, with text above and below |
| Wrap right | Sits on the left; the text flows around its right |
| Wrap left | Sits on the right; the text flows around its left |
| In the line | Sits in the sentence, like a very large character |
The width slider is a percentage of the text width, not a pixel size, so the picture keeps its proportion of the page at any trim size.
These four are what an open format can carry honestly. QuillArk deliberately does not offer “behind text” or “in front of text”: those need positions measured against a page, which cannot be stored in Markdown and would come out differently in every export.
Word documents place images on their own line rather than wrapping. QuillArk says so in the export warnings when a chapter uses a wrap. PDF, EPUB and HTML wrap as you set them.
Focus and typewriter mode
Focus mode hides everything except the page. Typewriter scrolling keeps the line you are writing in the middle of the screen. Both are in the View menu and in Settings → Editor.
Word counts
The status bar shows words in the document, in the selection, and where you are against today’s goal. Goals & Insights on the right has the fuller picture.