Board

Open the Board

Open Board from the footer tabs, or press Ctrl+3. The BOARDS list in the project library shows the project’s boards; choose one to open it.

Every new project comes with one board, Ideas board. Boards made in StoryShape for iPad appear in the list too.

Add notes

• Choose ＋ Note, or double-click an empty part of the board.
• A new note is called “New note”. Double-click it to open Edit note, then give it a Title and text in Note.
• Choose Save note.

From Ideas, Send to board… turns an idea into a linked note. See Develop an idea.

Edit a note

Double-click a note, select it and press Alt+Enter, choose Edit…, or right-click it and choose Edit note…. The Edit note dialog has:

• Title and Note;
• Paper, the note’s colour;
• Width and Height;
• Position X and Position Y, for exact placement;
• Linked originals, to link the note to scenes, World pages, ideas and more.

With one note selected, the panel at the bottom of the board also lets you change its title, text, size, colour and links without opening the dialog.

Colours

Notes come in six paper colours: Lavender, Sand, Sage, Rose, Blue and Slate. Select one or more notes and choose Color, or right-click and use Paper color. New notes start lavender.

Colours are yours to use however you like, for example one per character, or one for questions and another for answers.

Move, resize and arrange

• Move: drag a note. Dragging a selected note moves the whole selection.
• Resize: drag a selected note’s corner, or press Alt+arrow keys. Notes can be 160–640 points wide and 120–600 tall.
• Nudge: arrow keys move the selection 1 point; Shift+arrow keys move 10.
• Stack: right-click and choose Bring to front, or use Selection → Send to back.
• Copy: Duplicate makes an independent copy that keeps the same links.

The Selection menu also has exact steps, such as Wider by 20 points, Move left 10 points and Move to center of view.

Select notes

To	Do this
Select a note	Click it
Add to the selection	Ctrl-click or Shift-click
Select an area	Shift-drag across the background
Select everything	Selection → Select all notes
Clear the selection	Esc, or Selection → Clear selection
Open a note’s menu	Right-click, or Shift+F10

The status line at the bottom shows how many notes there are and how many are selected.

Images

Add pictures, such as maps, mood images, photos of handwritten pages or reference art.

• Choose ＋ Image…, pick a file and choose Add image;
• or drag image files onto the board;
• or paste an image.

Images can be PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP, up to 32 MB each. You can drop or paste up to twelve at once. Each becomes a note captioned with the file’s name, and the original file is kept inside the project.

Right-click an image note and choose Open image to see it larger, or Save exact copy… to save the original file somewhere else.

Link notes to originals

A note can link to the things it’s about: books, chapters, scenes, World pages, ideas, plot cards, map pins and more. Linked notes show a badge such as 2 linked originals.

1. Select a note.
2. In the panel below the board, choose an item in Link to original, then Add link. Or use Linked originals in the Edit note dialog.

To open a linked item, right-click the note and choose Open linked original, or use the ↗ beside it. Changing a note never changes its originals.

Move around

To	Do this
Pan	Drag the background, or scroll. Shift+scroll pans sideways
Zoom	Ctrl+scroll (⌘+scroll on a Mac), or the zoom buttons
See every note	Fit
Go back to 100%	Reset view

Each board remembers its zoom and position on this computer.

List shows the notes as a list instead, with each note’s colour, title, position, size and number of links. Choose a row to select that note, and Canvas to return.

Handwritten notes

Handwritten notes are made in StoryShape for iPad with Apple Pencil or a finger. On the desktop they show as a picture of the handwriting, labelled Handwritten note, which you can move, colour, link and resize like any other note. Drawing and editing handwriting is an iPad feature. See the iPad page.

Delete notes

Select notes and press Delete or Backspace, or right-click and choose Move note to Trash. Notes in Trash can be restored from Trash at the bottom of the library.