Liquid | Author User Guide (as shipped with Author)

 

 

Document Manager

 

The Document Manager is the screen where you see all your documents (the screen where you tapped on this document go get this view), which are all stored on iCloud, with backups on your device. The documents are arranged from newest at the top to oldest at the bottom.

 

 • To Open; tap the document

 • To create a New Document; tap +

 • To Rename, Delete or Duplicate the document; tap and hold the document

 • To force-sync with iCloud; pull down the screen

 

Note that greyed out documents are currently being synchronised with the iCloud server.

 

If you purchase the in-app upgrade you can also access:

 

 • Preferences top right. Here you can specify what the headings and body fonts should be and what citation style to use

 • Sharing top left. Tap a document and choose how to share your document; as a .author document, .rtf or .pdf

 

 

Document View

 

When you tap on a document in the Document Manager, your document opens into the Document View, which is designed to be as clean and uncluttered as possible, while also giving you all the information and controls you need.

 

You can pinch the screen to scale your text to your preferred size.

 

You can tap and hold text to access the Contextual Menu, which provides most of the text interaction functionality. There is more description of this menu below.

 

Top Bar

 

The controls on the top of the screen fade away after 5 seconds. Tap anywhere to see them again.

 

 • Documents; Takes you back to the Documents Manager view

 • Table of Contents; Takes you to the Table of Contents view, which shows you all the headings in your document, which you can then tap on to jump to

 • Headings; for the Table of Contents view are defined by selecting text and choosing 'Tag/Heading'

 • Undo; Undoes your last action

 

Bottom Bar

 

The controls at the bottom of the screen also fade away after 5 seconds, but only when you are in Read mode. In Edit mode they stay available at all times.

 

 • Word Count; shows you the current amount of words in your document

 • Edit/Done; toggles to edit mode when you tap Edit and read mode when you tap Done

 • Search; gives you options to search the web's search engines and references based on typing in keywords. The options are the same as when you select text and choose Search or References.

 

Reading

 

When you are in edit mode you can toggle to reading mode by tapping 'Done' bottom centre.

 

You can now read your document with a pleasant light-brown background.

 

Tap the margins to jump a full screen (bottom half to advance, top half to go back) and take advantage of the Table of Contents which is automatically generated when you assign text to be headings; tap it and tap on the heading you'd like to jump to.

 

Please note that scrolling is different in Author - it will automatically attempt to make sure no text is half-broken at the top of the screen.

 

When you tap on a citation in the document, a small white box appears, with the relevant citation information, notes and hyperlink, where appropriate.

 

 

Writing / Editing

 

When you are in reading mode you can toggle to edit mode by tapping 'Edit bottom centre (if the bar is not showing this command, tap the bar to reveal).

 

Write on a clear white screen, with built-in or bluetooth keyboard (personally I love the Apple one and I put the iPad on a 12 South stand, with plenty of space for my arms) or even use iOS voice transcription which is great for capturing notes straight into documents when on the move, and is pretty reliable now.

 

You can always see the amount of words in your document through the live word count at the bottom left.

 

 

Contextual Menu

 

The contextual menu changes depending on whether you are in Edit or Read modes and whether you have selected text or just have a blinking cursor.

 

Contextual : Read Mode

 

In Read mode you only get two options, both of which let's you search based on the selected text and see the results in the built-in web browser:

 

 • Search; Google, Google Images, Google Scholar, Amazon, Mendeley and YouTube

 • References; Define, Wikipedia, IMDB, Etymonline, Google Definition, Wolfram Alpha and Wordnik

 

Contextual : Edit Mode

 

When you are in the Edit mode you can select text and choose:

 

 • Cut; cuts the selected text, deleting the original text from the document and storing it in the Cuttings System. Tap on the cursor without selecting text to see the Cuttings menu (described below)

 • Copy; copies the selected, without deleting the original text from the document, which you can then paste later

 • Tag... opens the tag sub-menu. Please see Tagging below

 • Search... as Search and References above, under 'Contextual : Read Mode'

 • References.... as Search and References above, under 'Contextual : Read Mode'

 

If you have not selected any text, your options are:

 

 • Select; to select the word near the cursor

 • Select All; to select all the text in the document

 • Cuttings; ONLY appears if you have cut more than one item. This command gives you a list of everything you have cut but not pasted. If you use a physical keyboard, the short-cut is cmd-shift-v

 • Insert; let's you insert pictures

 • Paste; pastes anything you have in copy or cut memory.

 

 

Tagging

 

Select text to tag:

 

 • List... allows you to define text as a list

 • Heading... let's you assign text as a heading level 1-6. Text assigned as a heading appears in the Table of Contents

 • Emphasis let's you make text bold/italic

 • Citation gives you the option to assign a citation to the text;

 • Searching Amazon for a book which the system then extracts the citation information from,

 • Manual entering of Citation information

 • Use Copied Citation if you have selected 'Copy As Citation' when in the built-in Web Browser

 • Link gives you the option to make the selected text into a hyperlink.

 

 

Support

 

Please visit liquid.info to learn more about Liquid | Author and do not hesitate to send me an email should you have any questions, suggestions or issues: frode@hegland.com

 

 

Frode Hegland

London