Manutius Guide

Everything the app does, in the order you’ll meet it. Questions: hello@manutius.app

Getting started

• Download the DMG and drag Manutius to Applications. It’s signed and notarized, so it opens without warnings.
• The first 14 days are a full free trial. To buy or enter a key: Manutius → Settings… (⌘,) → License.
• Books are .book files (⌘S). After the first save, every change autosaves; unsaved work is kept in a recovery copy and restored on the next launch.
• File → Import Word Document splits a .docx into chapters on its headings.

Writing

• Type on the pages; text flows onto new pages automatically. The chapter title goes at the top of the chapter’s first page.
• ⌘B / ⌘I bold and italic · ⇧⌘8 scene break (or type *** and Return) · ⇧⌘Q block quote · ⇧⌘C centre a paragraph · ⇧⌘0 back to a normal paragraph.
• ⇧⌘N new chapter · drag chapters in the sidebar to reorder · double-click to rename · right-click for more.
• ⌘2 whole-book view (front matter, blank pages, page numbers) · ⌘1 back to writing · ⌘+ / ⌘− / ⌘0 zoom, or pinch.
• Hide the sidebar with the icon at its top (⌃⌘S); the icon in the right panel’s header hides that panel (⌥⌘0).

Design

The Design button (⌥⌘D) opens the book’s design in five tabs.

• Type: font, size, line spacing, paragraph style (first-line indent for fiction, spaced for non-fiction), justification and hyphenation. Large print sets up a large-print edition in one click.
• Page: trim size — 6×9, 5.5×8.5, 6.14×9.21, 7×10 (paperback and hardcover), 5×8, 5.25×8, 5.06×7.81 — margins, running heads and page-number position. The status bar warns when the inside margin is too small for KDP at your page count.
• Chapters: chapter and part labels, title drop, right-hand starts, drop caps, small caps, and where endnotes print.
• Book: title, subtitle, author, ISBN, copyright page, dedication, “About the author”, “Also by”.
• Cover: see below.

Book structure

• Front & back matter (sidebar): half title, title page, copyright, dedication, contents, “Also by…” and “About the author” — one checkbox each. Edit their text in Design → Book.
• Part pages: right-click a chapter → Add Part Page Before. Double-click a part to rename it.
• Images: ⇧⌘I or the picture button. Images never split across pages. Click one for Small / Medium / Full width, a caption, or Remove. Manutius warns if an image is too low-resolution for print.
• Endnotes: ⌥⌘F inserts a numbered note at the cursor; click a number to edit it. Print them at the end of each chapter or in a Notes section at the back (Design → Chapters).

Spelling & grammar

• Underlines: red spelling, blue grammar (wrong word, “the the”, “a an”…), dotted amber style.
• Click an underlined word → pick a fix, Ignore (this book) or Add to dictionary (all books). Fixes undo with ⌘Z.
• The toolbar Aa✓ badge counts issues in the chapter; click it to jump to the next one.
• Settings → Proofing: on/off, and American, British, Canadian or Australian English. Checking runs on your Mac; nothing is sent online.

Listen

• Listen (⇧⌘L) reads aloud from the cursor, highlights the sentence being spoken, and continues into the next chapter. The player has previous/next sentence, play/pause, voice and speed. Typing stops playback.
• Voices come from Kokoro, an open-source model that runs on your Mac. The first use downloads it once (about 95 MB); after that it works offline.
• File → Export Chapter Audio… saves the current chapter as .m4a (or .wav).

Cover

Design → Cover. Add your front art, or a full-wrap image from a designer. Manutius calculates the spine from your page count and paper, adds the spine text, and builds the back (blurb, colours, optional image and author photo) with the barcode area kept clear. Guides show trim, spine and safe areas. Export → Print cover PDF is a KDP-ready full wrap with 0.125″ bleed; Ebook cover JPG is a 1600 px store cover, and EPUBs include it automatically. Re-export the cover whenever the page count changes.

Plan

Plan (⌥⌘P) shares the right side with Design.

• Outline: a word goal with deadline and daily pace; each chapter’s status (Idea → Done), a note, and a word target. Status dots also appear in the chapter list.
• Notes: synopsis and free notes. Cast: characters, places and things. To-do: a checklist.

Everything is saved inside the .book file.

Export

• ⌘E Print PDF: exact trim size, fonts embedded, mirrored margins — upload as the KDP / IngramSpark interior.
• ⇧⌘E EPUB: reflowable ebook for Kindle, Apple Books and Kobo.
• Print cover PDF and Ebook cover JPG from the Export menu or the Cover tab.

Backups

Manutius saves a backup every 5 minutes while you write (only when something changed) and when you quit. It keeps the last 20, plus one per day for 30 days. Change the interval, count and folder (e.g. iCloud Drive) in Settings → Backups. File → Restore from Backup… lists them with word counts; restore in place, or open one as a copy.

Appearance

Settings → General: System, Light or Dark. Dark pages in dark mode makes the pages charcoal for night writing; it only affects the screen — exported PDFs are always black on white.

License

• Settings → License: paste the key from your purchase email and click Activate. One license works on up to 3 Macs; Deactivate this Mac frees a seat.
• After the trial, without a license, the app is read-only: you can open books and copy text, but not edit or export.
• Lost your key? Recover it by email.

Claude (optional)

The ✦ Claude button (⌥⌘K) opens a chat panel: “check my tone”, “grammar pass on this chapter”, “am I following my plot?”. Claude sees the open chapter and your selection, and reads your chapters, plan, cast and notes through Manutius’ own tools. Allow edits is off by default; turn it on and Claude can make changes itself, each with Undo.

This uses Claude Code — Anthropic’s command-line assistant — with your own Claude account. Install it from claude.com/code and run claude once in Terminal to sign in. To let a Terminal session of Claude Code work on the open book directly, use File → Connect Claude Code… (or Settings → Claude Code) → Copy command, and paste it into Terminal once. Every Claude edit shows a notice with Undo; ⌥⌘Z steps back through them.

Help

Help → Report a Problem… opens an email to us with the app version and recent log attached for you to review. Help → Third-Party Licenses lists the open-source software Manutius is built with.