Feature Guide

Rearrange tiles to build the perfect workspace configuration.

Pin project tiles anywhere in the left panel for instant access to your most-used tools and references.

Reorder toolbar buttons to match your workflow.

Open multiple scenes or documents simultaneously.

Detach tabs into standalone windows for side-by-side reference and editing.

Switch between light and dark themes instantly.

Create your own color schemes with full control over the interface palette.

Remap shortcuts to match your muscle memory and preferred workflow.

Press ` (backtick) to collapse or expand the left project panel instantly. Press Shift+` to toggle the right inspector panel. Neither shortcut fires while you are typing — they only activate when the editor is not focused.

Both the left and right panel dividers show a directional chevron pill on hover, indicating which way the panel will move. Keyboard shortcut hints appear in the tooltip when you hover over each handle.

Save any number of named workflows from the Settings panel, each capturing the full window state: project, document, tab layout, and all pop-out positions.

Pop-out tab windows and panel pop-outs are restored to their exact screen positions and sizes, not just the document list.

Optionally prompt to load a saved workflow on launch so your working environment is ready before you type the first word.

Alistair quietly remembers your last session — document, tabs, and every pop-out window — the moment you close the app, no manual save required. Workflows are scoped per project, so each project remembers its own last session independently. v1.1.5

Continue on the welcome screen restores your entire last session — not just the document, but every popped-out tab and panel window, back in its exact position. A brief "Resuming where you left off…" screen covers the restore so you never see an empty project flash by first. v1.1.5

A doughnut chart shows how far you are through today's word target at a glance. The goal is configurable from Settings.

A bar chart plots your daily word counts across the past week so you can spot patterns and plan your sessions accordingly.

Tracks consecutive days you hit your word goal to keep you accountable and motivated over the long haul.

A quiet banner and a Settings tab let you know when a new version is ready, with the option to check for updates on your own schedule instead.

On macOS, Alistair downloads and installs new versions itself, then restarts on the newer build. The very first install still needs a one-time approval (right-click, Open), since that step needs a paid Apple developer certificate we have chosen not to buy. Every update after that first approval runs quietly in the background.

Turn automatic checks on or off from Settings, and update whenever suits you with a single click.

Bold, italic, headings, alignment, lists, and more, all accessible from a clean toolbar.

Write with a real page-layout view so your manuscript looks the way it will on paper.

Font size and line height set in the toolbar apply across every scene you open in a session. Switch scenes without losing your reading preferences — the toolbar always wins over the document's saved value.

Resize images with intuitive drag handles right inside the editor.

Inline, wrap-left, wrap-right, and full-width layouts for flexible image placement.

Create and apply reusable formatting presets that persist across all documents in your project.

Word count, character count, and paragraph count for the current paragraph update in real time as you type — right in the style ribbon, no panel required.

Matches are highlighted using the CSS Custom Highlights API — purely visual, zero DOM mutation. Your formatting and undo stack are completely untouched.

Step through every match forward or backward, with a live count of results.

Replace the current match or every match in the document in one step. Replacements integrate with the editor's undo/redo so they are fully reversible.

Show or hide comments so they never get in the way of your writing.

Categorize and filter suggestions by type so nothing gets lost in the noise.

Pre-formatted templates for common front matter sections.

Apply customizable formatting options that persist across all scenes in your manuscript.

Drop quick notes for your future self without breaking your flow.

Drag scenes into any sequence from the panel and watch the editor update in real time. Restructure your narrative without touching a single file.

Load your entire manuscript into a single continuous editor, all scenes end to end, so you can read and revise without switching context.

Pre-formatted templates for common back matter elements.

Configurable auto-save with a last-saved indicator so you always know where you stand.

Compare revisions side-by-side to track line-level changes between any two versions.

Maintain parallel drafts of any scene, each with independent version history.

Attach location, time, POV character, mood, and custom fields to each scene for a complete at-a-glance record of what happens where.

Add as many beats as a scene demands. Inciting moments, reversals, reveals, emotional shifts. Structure each scene's internal arc on your own terms.

Tag which characters appear in each scene, drawn from your character profiles, for instant continuity reference.

Rename a character or location anywhere in the app and every Story Elements chip and dropdown updates instantly — no stale references, no manual cleanup.

Select any combination of scenes, characters, beats, and metadata to populate your Story Arc. You decide what gets mapped and how.

Strips away all interface chrome for deep, uninterrupted drafting sessions.

Keeps your current line centered on screen as you type, eliminating the need to scroll and maintaining focus on the sentence you're crafting.

Assemble your full manuscript from scenes, title page, copyright, dedication, and acknowledgments into a single submission-ready file.

The compiler applies industry-standard formatting by default. Override margins, fonts, and headers when you need precise typographic control.

Compile straight to a real, reflowable EPUB e-book, with a live EPUB preview alongside the print preview so you see the reflowed result before exporting. Title, author, and cover image are pulled automatically from your Manuscript Cover page — no separate cover upload step. Chapters can auto-number themselves ("Chapter 1", "Chapter 2"…) across print, DOCX, and EPUB alike, leaving prologues, epilogues, and interludes untouched.

Detects contradictions in character attributes such as eye colour, hair colour, and age across scenes — flags inconsistencies so you can resolve them before they reach a reader.

Every issue card shows the actual sentence from your manuscript where the value was found — not just a scene name. Green entries confirm a consistent attribute; red entries show the conflicting values side by side with the surrounding text, so you can fix the right passage immediately.

Attributes that are consistent across your entire manuscript are displayed as a separate green "verified" section — a quick way to confirm that character details are holding steady as your draft grows.

Catches geographic direction inconsistencies — if Chapter 2 says the castle is north of the village and Chapter 7 says south, the checker surfaces both passages with their exact wording.

Uses Levenshtein distance to find near-duplicate character and location names that may be typos or inconsistent spellings across a long manuscript.

The checker runs entirely on rule-based logic. No model download, no inference time, no internet connection. Results appear in the right panel instantly.

Export selected documents as a .alistair-review file in two clicks. The bundle contains a read-only snapshot your reviewer opens in their own copy of Alistair.

Reviewers select text and add typed annotations categorized as Comment, Suggestion, or Question. All annotations are anchored to the exact text they reference.

Import the returned bundle through a merge dialog that shows each annotation's anchor status: matched, fuzzy, or unresolvable. Accept or reject annotations individually before anything touches the manuscript.

Handles text edits made since export. If you rewrote the annotated passage, the merger uses fuzzy matching to find the closest surviving anchor rather than marking it unresolvable.

Reviewers read freely — left-click and drag selects text naturally. Right-click on any passage opens the annotation popup for both selection comments and paragraph-level notes.

Reviewers can change the font family and size while reading — useful when reviewing manuscripts that were written in a different typeface. The setting is session-only and never written back to the bundle.

The entire workflow is file-based. Send the bundle by email or any file-sharing method you already use. Nothing touches a server at any point.

A heuristic tension score per scene derived from punctuation density and short-sentence ratio, plotted as a curve across your manuscript. Spot low-energy stretches at a glance.

A bar chart of scene lengths across the full manuscript so you can see where chapters run long or short relative to your pacing goals.

An average dialogue ratio doughnut shows the prose-to-dialogue balance across your entire manuscript at a glance.

A horizontal bar chart breaks down how many scenes are told from each POV character, so you can see whose story dominates and balance accordingly.

A full sortable table listing every scene with its word count, dialogue percentage, and tension score in one view.

Instantly scans for clichés, passive voice, repeated words within a 25-word window, sentences over 35 words, repetitive paragraph openers, and unusual dialogue tags — no internet required.

A second pass powered by your local LLM targets purple prose, telling not showing, redundant adverbs, melodrama, throat-clearing, weak verbs, over-explained similes, and redundant qualifiers.

Each issue card shows the surrounding text snippet. Click it to jump directly to that passage in the scene editor with an orange highlight flash.

Accept a finding to log it as an Alistair comment in the scene, complete with the issue-type badge (Cliché, Passive Voice, etc.) so it stays visually distinct in the comments panel.

Two dedicated buttons in the bottom sensory bar let you show character mentions, location mentions, or both — off by default so they never compete with your inline hint marks.

Brackets sit in the page margin and point back to the paragraph where a name appears, keeping your prose completely free of highlighting until you actually hover.

Hovering a bracket highlights every matching name in that paragraph using the CSS Custom Highlight API — purely visual, so it never touches your saved content or undo history.

Identifies speakers from surrounding dialogue tags (said, asked, replied, whispered, and more) and assigns each character a consistent colour across the panel so voice balance is immediately visible.

Show or hide the action and description paragraphs between spoken lines. Keep context visible when you need it, pure dialogue when you don't.

Click any dialogue card to jump directly to that line in the scene editor, with an orange flash highlight so you land exactly where you need to be.

Export to DOCX for editing or PDF for final distribution.

Each spread is its own document with a text panel for your prose and an illustration panel for reference images and notes. Spread number and page range are tracked per document.

Upload reference or draft images directly into each spread. Add staging notes (rough sketch, final art, approved) so the state of every illustration is always visible at a glance.

A live word count tracks every spread individually so you can keep each page appropriately concise for young readers.

Compile all spreads into a single formatted document. Export as PDF or DOCX for sharing with agents, publishers, or illustrators.

The DOCX compiler assembles every spread with its text alongside dedicated pages for title, dedication, copyright, table of contents, acknowledgments, author bio, and a back cover blurb — all in a single submission-ready file.

Scene Heading, Action, Character, Parenthetical, Dialogue, and Transition are each set with a toolbar click or a Ctrl/Cmd+1–6 shortcut. Scene headings compose from separate INT./EXT., Location, and Time-of-Day fields instead of freeform typed punctuation.

Suggestions are pulled from the Character and Location sheets you've already created, plus anything already used elsewhere in the script — so a name you've planned shows up before you've ever typed it into a scene.

(V.O.), (O.S.), and (O.C.) combine with (CONT'D) on the same cue, matching how real scripts mark a character resuming off-screen after an interruption.

True per-page pagination with real page numbers, sequential scene numbers flanking each slug line in the margins, and (CONTINUED)/(MORE) markers when a scene or a line of dialogue splits across a page break.

Export to .fountain (plain-text) or .fdx (Final Draft XML), and import an existing .fountain file to seed a new document.

The compiler auto-derives a cast and location list straight from your scene headings and character cues, with the option to include it as an appendix page — no separate document to maintain by hand.

Per-scene length bars, dialogue density, and character screen-time, computed directly from the elements already in your script — real screenwriting-pacing tools chart exactly this to spot a scene running long or short.

Organize your collection with dedicated folders for Poems, Tales (narrative poetry and prose poems), and Notes.

Alistair supports Free Verse, Haiku, Tanka, Sonnet, Limerick, and Villanelle. Each form comes with structure templates and guidance.

A dedicated sidebar counts syllables per line, tracks your structure, and provides form-specific guidance as you write.

Get real-time feedback on meter, rhyme schemes, and structural requirements for each poetic form.

A real-time poetry analysis tool that displays the current line, counts syllables, detects meter patterns (iambic, trochaic, etc.), and tracks rhyme schemes (A-B-A-B). Designed for quick glances while writing. This same panel also powers Prose Rhythm analysis in Manuscript projects and Scene Pacing analysis in Screenplay projects — see those project types for details.

Structured templates for physical description, voice, backstory, goals, and fatal flaws. Pin character cards alongside your draft for quick reference.

Visualize character connections, alliances, and conflicts with an interactive relationship graph that updates as you write.

Each character card has a collapsible section listing every manuscript scene that mentions the character's name — with scene title, word count, and a text excerpt around the mention. Results cache locally; a Re-Scan button forces a fresh pass. v1.1

Add a character without leaving your current scene — the Characters panel's add button creates a blank character sheet from a name you type and opens it immediately, ready to fill in. v1.1.5

Every character card has a one-click "Sheet" button that opens that character's document in a new, focused tab — so checking a reference never navigates you away from what you're writing. v1.1.5

Document multiple worlds, continents, factions, religions, magic systems, and social hierarchies with structured, cross-referenced entries.

Plot your narrative with draggable scene cards. Rearrange sequences and quick-view scene details at a glance.

Build a visual timeline of your narrative arc pulling from your scene metadata — locations, characters, beats, and mood. Select exactly which story elements get mapped and how they connect across acts.

Track inciting incidents, turning points, and climax beats across your story structure as your narrative takes shape.

Tag each scene with multiple simultaneous locations using a visual chip interface. No limit on the number of locations per scene.

An interactive graph that visualizes how your world's locations connect — parent locations, sub-regions, and linked places shown in a navigable map.

Attach a photo to any location sheet. The image appears on the location's node in the world map for instant visual recognition while navigating your world.

Assign a parent location to any place to build a spatial hierarchy — continent → country → city → district. The world map reflects the hierarchy visually.

Select a location name in your scene, right-click, and choose Create Location Sheet. The sheet is created with the name pre-filled and the Story Elements dropdown updates live — no need to leave the editor.

Ask Alistair to scan a scene and extract locations automatically. Review the suggestions and add only what you want — nothing is inserted without your approval.

Switch the world map to Story mode and all parent-child hierarchy lines and manual connections disappear. Only character journey trails remain, so you can focus entirely on where each character travels, starts, and ends up — without the structural geography cluttering the view.

A toolbar button in Location and Story map modes lets you show or hide the background grid at any time. The preference is saved automatically and restored on next open.

Create notes with full revision history, version control, and styling capabilities identical to manuscript scenes.

Save documents, PDFs, and citations in one place.

Drag fields, sections, and layouts from a palette directly onto the canvas. Rearrange sections, configure each field type (text, dropdown, tags, date, and more), and preview the finished template instantly.

Your saved templates are displayed in a visual card grid, each colour-coded by category — general, character, world, front matter, and visual document types. Animations and hover effects match the rest of the Alistair interface.

Once saved, custom templates appear alongside built-in templates when creating a new document. Use them across any folder in any project.

Indexes your actual manuscript text so responses reference your real characters, locations, and story content. If the answer is not in your manuscript, it says so. It never invents details.

Ask about "Chapter 1" or any scene by name and it retrieves that specific chapter's content directly. Not just semantically similar passages, but that exact document.

Responses include clickable scene reference cards with real text excerpts pulled directly from your manuscript. Click any source card to open that scene in the editor.

Generate scene ideas, character names, dialogue variations, and world-building concepts through natural conversation grounded in your existing story.

Surface continuity issues and get suggestions for resolving narrative inconsistencies while preserving story logic.

If no project is open when you ask a story question, Alistair lists your available projects as clickable options and re-asks your question once you select one.

Responses stream token-by-token via SSE — the first token appears in roughly 1–2 seconds instead of waiting for the full response to buffer. v1.1

Early Interview activates when fewer than five character fields are filled — the character is more guarded and undefined. In Character mode activates at five or more confirmed fields for a fully grounded voice.

The character only knows what you have written on their sheet. For gaps, they deflect, evade, or push back — consistent with their personality — rather than making something up.

A Save to Character Sheet button sends the conversation through a local extraction pass and shows a review modal comparing current vs. new values field by field. Only the fields you approve are written back.

Typing "interview [character name]" in the LLM chat routes directly to the character interview — the model never fabricates a fictional session with your actual characters.

Suggestions appear as highlighted text directly in your document with easy-to-use action buttons for each recommendation.

Each suggestion includes three options: Accept to apply the change, Dismiss to remove it, or Discuss to open a conversation about the recommendation.

Get grammar corrections, style improvements, and "show don't tell" recommendations to refine every aspect of your writing.

Review all suggestions in the Comments panel. Click any suggestion to navigate directly to it in your document.

Drag and drop .gguf model files into Alistair, or download compatible models directly from within the app.

Your LLM runs directly on your hardware via llama.cpp. All processing happens on-device - no data leaves your machine.

Choose from American and British male and female voices. All voices run locally via the bundled ONNX engine — no internet or API key required.

Mix any two voices at a custom ratio to craft a sound unique to your project. Named blends (Alistair Female, Alistair Male) ship ready to use. Save your own blends for reuse across sessions.

Play, pause, stop, seek, skip forward and back by chunk, and adjust playback speed from 0.5�- to 2.0�-. A seek bar with timestamps keeps you oriented in long documents.

Right-click any selected text in the scene editor and choose Read Aloud to send it directly to the TTS player. Great for spot-checking dialogue or a specific paragraph.

Export your entire document as a single WAV audio file. Recordings are saved to a configurable local folder (default: your Alistair data folder) and never uploaded anywhere.

TTS inference automatically uses your NVIDIA GPU via CUDA when available, falling back to CPU seamlessly. Engine status and hardware info are shown in Settings.

Assign a named voice (built-in blend or Custom Voice Profile) to any character in your project. When reading aloud, the TTS engine automatically switches to that character's voice each time their dialogue appears — bringing your cast to life without manual intervention. Assignments are set in the Dialogue-Only panel and persist with the project.

Clone any voice from a short audio sample (as little as 10 seconds). Record directly in the app or import a WAV/MP3 file. Alistair extracts a voice profile instantly — no training pipeline, no cloud upload, no waiting. The GPU Package enables faster inference; CPU works out of the box.

Save any cloned voice as a named Custom Voice Profile (e.g. "Elara_Cloned", "Crane_Deep"). Profiles appear alongside built-in voices everywhere in the TTS UI — in the voice picker, blend controls, and character assignment dropdowns. Test a profile before saving with the built-in preview player.

Play your manuscript end-to-end while Alistair voices each character in their assigned voice — narrator reads prose, each character's dialogue switches to their profile automatically. The result is a full-cast audiobook experience generated entirely on your machine, no studio required.

Offload model layers to your NVIDIA GPU for dramatically faster responses. Partial offload is supported; layers that don't fit in VRAM fall back to CPU automatically.

On Apple Silicon, LLM inference automatically runs on the GPU via Metal — no drivers or extra downloads required, it's built in.

Response speed and token budget automatically adapt to your loaded model size. Smaller models run faster with more output; larger models are tuned conservatively to stay within memory.

Prompt ingestion is batch-optimized for GPU inference, so the model starts responding faster even with long manuscript context windows.

Every save adds one link to a project-wide chain. Altering any past entry breaks every hash computed after it, detectable by recomputing the chain from the start.

Flag a manual save as a milestone the same way you already lock a version, and view a real before/after diff of any manual checkpoint for the document you have open.

Export a signed JSON report, exact ledger, per-document word-growth curves, paste statistics, and a plain-English summary, that a publisher can check independently with a small standalone verifier script.

Anyone already running Alistair, publisher or agent, can verify a report's signature and chain integrity from the welcome screen in a couple of clicks, with no project of their own required.