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Edit Project Details

Project details describe the work around its text: its title, subtitle, synopsis, author or pen name, type, status, paragraph style, and cover. Change them when the project needs a clearer identity or different presentation.

Editing project details

Use project details when the project’s title or visible information needs to change. This is useful for fixing a temporary title, making naming more consistent, or clarifying what a project contains.

Renaming a project does not rewrite the documents inside it. It only changes the project name shown in the overview, switcher, and workspace.

The editable project details are the title, subtitle, web address, synopsis, author or pen name, type, status, paragraph indentation, and cover image. Choose Rename to change the title and the Slug used in the web address. Choose Add a subtitle, or the existing subtitle, beneath the title on the project overview to edit the subtitle. Synopsis, Author / pen name, type, status, and the Indent paragraphs setting are also changed from the project overview inside the workspace. A cover image can be uploaded, replaced, or removed from the project card in grid view or from the project overview beside the synopsis.

The subtitle can be up to 200 characters. It appears on project share pages and on PDF, EPUB, and HTML title pages, but is not added to Markdown exports.

The synopsis can be up to 2,000 characters. Longer synopses are folded to three lines when you are not editing them; use Show more and Show less to read the full text.

The author or pen name can be up to 120 characters. It appears on shared project pages and as the byline in PDF, EPUB, and HTML exports. A shared project shows only a name you set for that project. When the field is empty, exports use your account name instead, but shared pages do not.

Project status can be set to No status, Draft, Paused, or Finished. See Project Statuses when you want to use status as a simple overview of the project’s progress.

Paragraph indentation is a presentation setting for one project. It changes how paragraphs appear in the editor and in supported reading exports without adding spaces or tabs to the document text.

The Indent paragraphs setting is off by default. When it is on, consecutive paragraphs are indented in the editor and in PDF, EPUB, and HTML exports. The first paragraph in a document and the first paragraph after a heading stay aligned with the left edge.

Archived projects can be viewed but not changed, so their details cannot be edited until the project is unarchived.

Choosing a project type

Project type is an optional label for the general form of your work. It can help you recognise projects in grid view, but it does not impose a workflow or require a particular structure.

The available choices are:

  • No type leaves the project without a type. Use this when the form is undecided or when a label would not be useful.
  • Novel is for longer fiction, whether it is organised into chapters, parts, acts, or another structure.
  • Short story is for shorter fiction or a single story divided into scenes.
  • Poetry is for individual poems, sequences, or poetry collections.
  • Essay is for one essay or a collection of related essays.
  • Non-fiction is for factual, instructional, biographical, research based, or other nonfiction writing.
  • Journal is for dated entries, reflections, logs, or other writing that grows over time.
  • Other is for projects that do not fit the listed forms.

When creating a project, choose a value from the Type field in the New project dialog. Choosing a project template may suggest a matching type, but you can change that suggestion before creating the project.

Type and template are separate choices. Selecting Novel, for example, does not add chapters or acts. The template controls any starting sections and documents, while Type remains only a descriptive label.

To change the type later, use the Type selector under Settings on the project overview. The type appears on project cards and in the project overview, but the projects search field does not search or filter by it.

Adding a book cover

A book cover helps you recognise a project in grid view and gives its project overview a more visual identity. It also appears on a shared project page and in its link preview. It does not change the writing inside the project or appear in exported files.

You can add a cover from the project card in grid view or from the project overview beside the synopsis. Select a PNG, JPEG, WebP, or GIF image no larger than 5 MB. Spleen crops the image to a portrait cover shape, so keep important details away from the outer edges.

To replace a cover, choose its upload control and select another image. To remove it, choose the remove control. On devices with a mouse, these controls appear when you point at the image; on touch devices, they remain visible.