Compiling

Compiling turns your manuscript into a finished file, such as a submission manuscript, a print-ready PDF, an ebook or an audiobook. Your project is never changed.

Open the Publish room (⌥⌘5), or choose File > Compile… (⇧⌘E). On iPhone, Publish is a room along the bottom of the screen.

Formats

The column lists what you can make. Choose one to see a sample of it before anything's built: the opening chapters as they'll be set, the ebook's first chapter, or an audiobook's tracks with how long each will run.

More formats lists the rest, such as the reading copy and plain text, and Your formats lists presets you've made. Screenplays and journals have their own formats; see Screenplays and Journals.

Beside the sample is what the format is built with (font, spacing, trim, ISBN, voice and so on), and Before it's built: quick checks such as chapters with no title, missing contact details, an ISBN that doesn't check out, or names the audiobook voice has no pronunciation for. Choose Show to open the passage. Then choose the one button to build it: Prepare manuscript, Build ebook, Build print PDF, Record audiobook or Prepare pack.

While the contents are filtered, Only the filtered scenes builds just those, with their chapters as headings (see Filtering the Contents).

Every compile is a checkpoint

Each compile records a checkpoint named after the format and the time. Wherever the file goes, you can see exactly what it contained and what you've changed since (see Checkpoints and History). A Word file compiled this way also lets you import a reviewer's comments later (see Comments from Word).

Preflight

Five Rooms checks every file it makes: the word count, formatting, fonts, blind-submission names and more. The results replace Before it's built once the file is made, and the preview shows the finished PDF. For a manuscript or screenplay, choose Check against a market… to pick a market (see Storyteller Workbench) or enter a word limit, and preflight checks against those too. Choose Show to open a passage in the editor, or Page to see it in the PDF. Then choose Save… (or Print…).

An ebook is checked the way the W3C's epubcheck checks one: the package, contents, links, ids and accessibility roles. Each problem names the chapter it's in. Stores run epubcheck itself when you upload.

What's compiled

Compile uses the manuscript arrangement. Documents with Include in compile turned off (in All details or the inspector) are left out, as are alternates, notes and research.

Headings come from your contents:

• A folder of documents becomes a chapter. Chapters are numbered for you, in the order they appear; the contents show the same numbers. A chapter that shouldn't take a number — a prologue, an interlude — has Numbered turned off in the inspector or its row's menu: it opens with its title alone, and the chapters after it are numbered as if it weren't there.
• A folder of folders becomes a part.
• Each document becomes a scene. Scenes in the same chapter are separated by the preset's scene break, such as # or ⁂.

To override this for one item, set its Section type in the inspector's Metadata section. A document set to Part or Chapter becomes a heading, and its text follows it.

Your own presets

To change a format, choose Customise…. Your version is saved as a new preset, listed under Your formats. A preset is written in YAML. It starts from the preset named in its inherits line, so you only give the settings you want to change:

name: Contest entry
description: Blind manuscript as a PDF, without unfinished scenes.
inherits: blind-submission
format: pdf
select:
  exclude: [{ field: status, equals: To Do }]

A preset can also compile just one collection, or leave one out (see Status, Labels and Collections).

Your presets are saved with the project and sync to your other devices. Choose one under Your formats, then Customise… to change it or Delete Preset…. If a preset has a mistake, Five Rooms says what's wrong when you save it.

Pen names and co-authors

The Author row in the Publish room chooses the name this book is published under: your own, or a pen name. New Pen Name… there adds one; Settings > Author ▸ Pen names lists them all. The choice is saved with the project, so every device builds it the same way. In the Library, the filter button beside the search field shows only the projects published under one name (see Rooms).

The pen name goes on the byline, the running heads, the book pages ({author} on the title and copyright pages), the ebook's author and the audiobook's credits. Title pages and query letters still give your own name and contact details, as agents and editors expect: they need to know who to write to. Blind submissions leave every name out, and preflight checks for all of them.

A book written with others names them too. Choose Co-authors and list them, one a line, in byline order after you. The byline reads "A and B" or "A, B and C"; a manuscript's header gives every surname, and its contact block stays yours; the ebook and the store details list each author. The co-authors are saved with the project. In a shared project only its owner changes them (see Write with Others).

Your own name and contact details come from Settings > Author. They and your pen names sync to your other devices through iCloud. For books, the publisher and ISBNs on the copyright page come from Publication details… (see Front Matter, Back Matter and Submissions).