Documentation
Learn Bookshaper area by area, with practical
answers for the work in front of you.
Audited documentation · verified September 2026
The shortest route to a styled, exportable manuscript.
Open Bookshaper and create a new project, or import an existing manuscript from Markdown, Word (DOCX), EPUB, HTML, or plain text, or from an unzipped EPUB or Kindle package folder. Your work is stored locally on your device.
Write scene by scene in the focused editor. Use the Outline view or the sidebar to rearrange parts, chapters, and scenes. Add character profiles, locations, and research notes as you go. Bookshaper opens straight onto the page — the first time you visit an area of the app, it offers a short walkthrough of what that area does, and you can reopen it anytime from that area or from Guide.
Revise scene by scene with proofread and refine. When you’re ready, style your book with the built-in typography tools and export to EPUB or PDF.
Reference library
Each manuscript is a project. Create a new project or import an existing manuscript file to get started.
The writing environment supports rich text editing with standard formatting: bold, italic, headings, block quotes, and lists. Write one scene at a time for focused editing.
An editable top-down tree of your whole manuscript — parts, chapters, scenes, and beats, each level collapsible. Rename inline, add or delete at any level, and drag to reorder or re-parent across levels. This is where plotters build and reshape structure.
In the Refine panel, Expand develops thin scenes with AI-generated prose that follows your established beats. Review the expanded text in a side-by-side diff before applying.
Analyze lists counted, located measures of your manuscript in two groups. Prose: Repetition, Sentence openers, Filter words, and Adverb overuse. Shape: Scene weight, Dialogue balance, Chapter length, Tension flatness, and Pacing uniformity. The Prose facets are counts you could check by hand; the Shape facets read the analysis's own classifications — each scene's tension and purpose, and each chapter's pacing. Every row shows how much of the book it has read — "reviewed · 47 of 47 chapters" — so a facet with nothing to report is telling you what it examined, not that the book is good. A finding states its claim plainly, with the passages behind it. For each one you choose Add To My Actions, Set Aside, or Decline; nothing here edits your manuscript. Characters, Locations, Timeline, and Beats sit in a Pending group: what the analysis found that your records don't have yet, which you add one at a time.
Create and manage character profiles with descriptions and aliases. The list is your record — you add, edit, and delete every entry on it, and no analysis run adds or removes one, and nothing writes into the description or notes you keep there.
The Notebook provides a space for research notes, character backstories, world-building details, and other reference material. Notes are organized into folders and can be tagged for quick retrieval.
Bookshaper syncs your manuscript to the cloud after every save, so your book follows you from workstation to laptop and back. Files are encrypted on your device before upload; the server stores only the encrypted copy, and it stays encrypted in the cloud.
Spelling and grammar run locally and instantly — they work offline and cost nothing. The grammar layer covers passive voice, readability, repeated words, a/an usage, sentence spacing, quotes, and contractions. Style analysis catches craft-level patterns: show-don’t-tell, clichés, purple prose, filter words, adverb overuse, dialogue tags, sentence variety, head-hopping, punctuation, homophones, and capitalization. When a style profile exists, suggestions are calibrated to your prose, so patterns consistent with your established voice aren’t flagged.
Customize the visual presentation of your book using dozens of style targets across front matter, body, back matter, page layout, and inline elements. Control fonts, sizes, spacing, margins, running headers, ornamental decorations, and hyperlink appearance.
Package opens on a card for each of Submission Kit, Pitch One-Sheet, and Story Bible PDF, each marked Ready, In progress, Not started, or Not yet, so you can see at a glance what's ready to send and what still needs work.
Generate AI-powered cover copy—a back-cover blurb and a tagline—from your manuscript’s genre, themes, characters, and stakes, with “For fans of…” hooks built from your pinned comp titles and confirmed tropes. Edit the results to match your voice, with word counts against the recommended range and writing checks that flag clichés and weak openers as you type. Drafting is voice-aware when a style profile exists. One-click copy for paste into KDP, your website, or a query letter. Retailer listing descriptions are generated separately, per retailer, in Retail Metadata.
