A real book from the first sentence
The page you type on is the page they will hold.
Every other tool hands you an endless white scroll and calls it a document, then makes the book at the end — which is where the surprises live. Galley starts you on the finished page: your trim, your typeface, your chapter openings, from sentence one. Nothing to reformat later, because there is no later.
CHAPTER ONE
The Station at Dusk
At Weirwater the lamps were lit by hand, and it was Mara Vale who lit them. She had come down to The Quiet Harbour before the neap, when the water draws back so far it seems to be deciding whether to return.
At Weirwater Station the lamps were not yet lit. Someone had left before the end of their watch, and in a town this size that was not a small thing.
* * *
Whatever the tide left, it left at the keeper's door first. The crossing that mattered was set down in the harbour ledger, in a level hand that did not lie so much as decline to explain.
He read the flats the way other men read the paper, for news of what the sea had been doing while no one watched.
At Weirwater the lamps were lit by hand, and it was Mara Vale who lit them, down at The Quiet Harbour before the neap.1
At Weirwater Station the lamps were not yet lit. Someone had left before the end of their watch.
* * *
The crossing that mattered was set down in the harbour ledger, in a level hand.
Glossary
neap
The tide at its least, when the water barely moves. The word glows green wherever it appears in your prose.
Choose the book before you write it
Six trim sizes, from mass market to Royal. 35 typefaces, all licensed for commercial publishing, so nobody sends you a letter about it — and not only for the Latin alphabet: there are book faces chosen for Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Thai, Japanese, Chinese and Korean, so a book in those languages is set in type meant for it rather than whatever the machine had lying around. Five chapter openings, from a bare title to full dress with an ornament. Set them once and every chapter follows — and if you want your own printer's flourish above chapter one, upload it.
Trim size
Typeface
Chapter opener
Scene break
Live page
CHAPTER ONE
The Station at Dusk
At Weirwater the lamps were lit by hand, and it was Mara Vale who lit them. She had come down to The Quiet Harbour before the neap, when the water draws back so far it seems to be deciding whether to return.
At Weirwater Station the lamps were not yet lit. Someone had left before the end of their watch, and in a town this size that was not a small thing.
* * *
Whatever the tide left, it left at the keeper's door first. The crossing that mattered was set down in the harbour ledger, in a level hand that did not lie so much as decline to explain.
He read the flats the way other men read the paper, for news of what the sea had been doing while no one watched.
At Weirwater the lamps were lit by hand, and it was Mara Vale who lit them, down at The Quiet Harbour before the neap.1
At Weirwater Station the lamps were not yet lit. Someone had left before the end of their watch.
* * *
The crossing that mattered was set down in the harbour ledger, in a level hand.
Book design
Small trade 5×8″
Pick a trim and a typeface and the page you write on becomes that book — not an approximation of it.
The conventions, handled quietly
First lines don't indent, the ones after them do. Type three dashes and you get a proper scene break. Running heads carry your name and title across the top. Set the book to British or American and the spelling checks, the quote marks and the hyphenation all follow it. None of this is a setting you have to learn — it's what a book does, done for you.
A room you can make quiet
Focus mode clears the screen down to the page. Typewriter scroll keeps the line you're writing at eye level instead of at the bottom of the screen. The paper can be light while the room stays dark, for the 11pm shift. Type @ for a character or # for a place and it drops the right name in — you will never misspell your own protagonist again.
CHAPTER ONE
The Station at Dusk
At Weirwater the lamps were lit by hand, and it was Mara Vale who lit them. She had come down to The Quiet Harbour before the neap, when the water draws back so far it seems to be deciding whether to return.
At Weirwater Station the lamps were not yet lit. Someone had left before the end of their watch, and in a town this size that was not a small thing.
* * *
Whatever the tide left, it left at the keeper's door first. The crossing that mattered was set down in the harbour ledger, in a level hand that did not lie so much as decline to explain.
He read the flats the way other men read the paper, for news of what the sea had been doing while no one watched.
At Weirwater the lamps were lit by hand, and it was Mara Vale who lit them, down at The Quiet Harbour before the neap.1
At Weirwater Station the lamps were not yet lit. Someone had left before the end of their watch.
* * *
The crossing that mattered was set down in the harbour ledger, in a level hand.
Focus mode
Just the page
The sidebar, the toolbar and the room all step back. Your word count waits in the corner until you want it.
And it saves
While you type, when you leave, and when you press ⌘S. If a save ever fails it says so, out loud, instead of pretending everything is fine.
What's included
Every card goes to the part of the docs that explains it.
Thirty minutes in it beats reading about it.
Launch GalleyOpens straight into a book. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.