The montage: the whole book at a glance

Under the page, the book as a strip, in reading order:

• The cover opens the strip, fixed in place. A click opens its editor.
• Each chapter, prologue or epilogue is a piece with the icon of its type and its name; if the name doesn't fit, its number.
• Scenes are cuts inside their chapter, and parts are a band above their chapters.
• Front matter and back matter have their own stretches, apart from the body.
• If a piece has workshop notes or cards attached, a marker says how many.

The header counts the book's pieces and words. The piece you have open always stays in view.

The button in the header switches between:

• Proportional: each piece as wide as the number of words it has. You see the rhythm of the book: where it stretches out and where it moves quickly.
• By piece: all the same width, with a readable name and its length in a small bar. Better when there are many chapters.

Exaratio remembers which one you use.

• The mouse wheel scrolls the strip lengthwise.
• Ctrl and the wheel zoom in and out around the mouse, without losing what you had underneath.
• Zoom in and Zoom out do the same around the open piece.
• All fits the whole book into the available width.

Under the pieces, one row per layer, aligned with them. Each button in the header turns its layer on or off, and Exaratio remembers which ones you want:

• Status: the border of each piece takes the color of its status, the same as the dot in the manuscript.
• Point of view: who narrates each stretch, with one color per character. A chapter told by two characters looks split.
• Time: when each piece happens on the active timeline. The date is written where it changes, and a jump back, which starts before what has already been told, is marked.
• Plots: which plots each piece touches, each with its own color.

Nothing that isn't written is made up: a chapter with no point of view leaves its slot empty, and a layer with nothing in the whole book takes no row. Point of view, plots and status come from each document's sheet (The document sheet); the dates, from the ones you put in the text (Date a scene).

The strip grows with the layers up to half of the page area; beyond that, it scrolls inside.

Drag a piece: a line marks where it will land. If you don't move it, it's a click and opens it.

• Zones are respected as in the manuscript: an epilogue doesn't land between chapters (Move, rename or change the type of a document).
• Drop a piece on a manuscript folder to take it out of the book.
• Drag a document from the library onto the strip to put it in the book.
• Near the edges, the strip scrolls on its own.

Moving in the montage is the same as moving in the manuscript, and Ctrl+Z⌘Z undoes it.

A book with decisions isn't read in a single row: the same button opens its graph, which you build by connecting fragments (A book with decisions).