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Importing a manuscript

Already have a draft in Markdown? Bring it in with Import — the button in the title bar, or ⌘+⇧+I.

The Import manuscript dialog
Paste Markdown, or click Open .md file… to load one from disk.

What gets imported

EscapeVelocity maps common Markdown to its semantic blocks:

Markdown Becomes
# Heading Chapter
## Heading / ### Heading Section headings
Paragraph text Body paragraphs
> quote Block quote
--- Scene break
**bold** Bold
*italic* Italic

DOCX is coming

Markdown (.md, .markdown, .txt) is supported today. DOCX import is planned.

Review before you replace

Importing is deliberate, not a guess. As soon as there’s text to parse, a Review line summarizes what EscapeVelocity found — how many chapters, headings and paragraphs — so you can confirm the structure is what you expect before committing.

The Import dialog with pasted Markdown and a review summary
The review summary confirms the parsed structure. Importing replaces the current document.

Steps

  1. Open the dialog (⌘+⇧+I).
  2. Paste your Markdown into the text area, or click Open .md file… to load a file.
  3. Check the Review line.
  4. Click Import.

The editor, outline and preview are all replaced with your imported manuscript, with bold/italic preserved. From there, refine styles with the slash menu and shape the book in the inspector.

Import replaces the current document

There’s no merge — importing swaps in the new manuscript. If you have unsaved work you want to keep, export or copy it out first.

Next: Exporting for print →