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Writing

Writing direction

Right-to-left writing for Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and other scripts, per document or for every new document.

Calmly Writer writes from left to right until you tell it otherwise. A document in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or another right-to-left script has its own direction, and the setting is kept with the document.

One document

Right-click anywhere in the text and choose Right to left writing, or Left to right writing to go back. On a touch screen, both are under ⋮ in the format bar. The whole document changes: text, lists and the table of contents.

Every new document

Settings › Formatting › Default text direction sets the direction new documents start with. Documents you already have keep theirs.

In the files

The direction is saved in the .calmly format and in HTML, so the document opens the right way round next time. Markdown and plain text have no place for it, and a document saved in those formats opens in the default direction; switch it with the menu if you need to.

Mixed text works as you would expect: a Latin word inside a right-to-left paragraph, or a right-to-left quotation in an English one, is laid out by the usual bidirectional rules.

More in Writing

Formatting as you type

The Markdown shortcuts that turn into headings, lists and emphasis while you type, and the ones you can turn off.

The toolbar and the shortcuts reminder

The small toolbar that appears over selected text, and the reminder of shortcuts that shows when you hold Ctrl or Cmd.

Headings and the table of contents

Six levels of heading, the panel that lists them, and the keys that move through it without touching the mouse.

Lists and checklists

Bulleted, numbered and checklist items, nesting them with Tab, and turning one kind of list into another.

Links

Links to web pages, to other documents on your disk and to headings in the same document, and how to follow them.

Images

Four ways to put a picture in a document, the difference between embedding and linking one, and what the editor does not do with images.

Tables, code and quotes

The slash menu that inserts blocks, the toolbar that edits tables, and the rules that keep them compatible with Markdown.

Comments

Notes attached to a passage, in three colours, which travel with the document and never print.

Smart punctuation

Curly quotes, dashes, ellipses and arrows written for you as you type, the quotation marks of your language, and how to turn each one off.

Spelling and languages

The spell checker and its languages on each system, adding words to the dictionary, and the language of the app itself.

Find and replace

Searching the document or every open tab, and a replace that keeps the capitals of what it finds.

Copy and paste

What happens to formatting when text comes in from elsewhere or goes out, and the two ways to copy a document as code.