Every request here was written by an author using the app. Vote for the ones you want, or ask for something new — the team replies in the open.
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Hi! So my manuscript contains some text messages, I'd love a different way to stylise these such as text bubbles!
Looking into this! I will look to ship some new designs and ensure they make their way to the exports!
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We added some new variants (and also colour selection!) Enjoy!
Shipped in v1.25.0How can i invite my assistant to edit on here with me?
Hi jhart. This doesn't currently exist. I am scoping how this would work as it is a pretty difficult piece of networking required. I can't commit to any timescales right now but after I plan how this could work, I will give you an update. This seems similar to your other request so I will remove that one!
- James
Hello, I really love the live preview of the book / ebook on the right side of the screen. It helps a lot with how I write my books! But I am wondering if …
Hi Jade, in the book section, I will create a page view for you :)
I would like to ask if the pricing currency change be selectable in the Alhora Store Fronts. I was looking at its features and I assume, because I am writing US English, the store …
Will look into creating it to be more dynamic in this regard visually, Stripe Connect should handle all of this on their end when you set up the pricing through different payment regions. Will see what can be done to align.
Hello there, Firstly, this programme is a great asset to have. I signed up recently as a Alpha Tester not realizing the programme was already launched. But I have been playing around with it …
Resolved all in 1.28.0
Shipped in v1.28.0I love being able to see the different sections of my manuscript, it really helps me stay organized. However, when I rename a section it sometimes gets added as a header in the proof. …
Update — the gap I described is now closed.
To recap what I said before: there were ways to get a clean artwork page, but none of them let you also give it a tidy name in the sidebar. That's what was missing, and it's what's now been built.
Every section has a Contents name. Type "Chapter One artwork" into it and that's what you see in the Contents pane while you work — and it is never printed. The page itself prints whatever its own title says, or nothing at all if you leave that empty. So you get the organised sidebar you wanted and a clean page, at the same time, in the same spot.
Also fixed in the same release, and related: an image page inserted between chapters used to be a dead grey placeholder you could only fill by dragging an asset onto it (which added a second block). Now you click the placeholder and choose the picture. That was the other half of what made this awkward.
Subsections are still on the list — not forgotten, just not this release.
Thanks again for such a clearly described case. "I want it in the sidebar but not in the book" is exactly the sentence that made the shape of this obvious.
Shipped in v1.28.0I was looking for this in Alhora: How do I keep headings from automatically being chapter names? What outcome would make this useful?
Following up on this one, because part of my earlier answer turned out to be wrong — and in your favour.
I said there was no way to stop Alhora promoting your Heading 1s into chapters on import. There was: it's a setting called "What starts a new chapter?" that sits next to the import button, with four choices — Auto, Heading 1, Heading 2 and Never. Never brings your manuscript in as a single chapter and leaves every heading as a heading.
What I got wrong is WHY you might not have found it working. In two places the setting was being quietly ignored: if you imported through the Quick Start wizard when creating a new book, and for every .odt file regardless of how you imported it. Both of those silently fell back to Auto. So depending on your route, you could have chosen Never and watched it split your book into chapters anyway.
Both are fixed in 1.28.0. The setting is now honoured on every import path and every format.
And the rest of my earlier answer still stands: if it's happening while you're writing in Alhora rather than on import, click the block, open Turn into, and choose Paragraph. If you want a heading that stays inside a chapter rather than starting a new one, use Heading 2 or Heading 3 — only Heading 1 carries chapter weight.
Sorry for pointing you at a control that wasn't reliably working. Thanks for asking the question that got it looked at.
Shipped in v1.28.0Since the app already produces a 3D mockup, it's be super helpful if we could download a (static) png, transparent version of it, so we could use it on promo posts etc, from any …
Done :)
Shipped in v1.27.0It would be more versatile to be able to set different fonts for the different headings, so we can make the most of font pairing.
Done :)
Shipped in v1.27.0Hey there, I noticed chapters with song or lyric headings have a big space underneigh it, so my chapter starts significanty lower than the ones that dont have it. Is there a way we …
Done :)
Shipped in v1.27.0Hi! is there anyway we can center certain front type paragraphs or page in general to start in the middle as well! :) my dedication is displayed at the top rather then middle page. …
This has now been added and classed as fixed :)
Shipped in v1.27.0Maybe there is a way to do this larady but I cant seem to find the contents page seperate so that it doesnt show up on my print file :)
Your instinct was right — it's already in there!
Open Print settings and you'll see a "Contents page" section with a
"Print a contents page" tick. Turn it off and it stays out of your
print file entirely.
Small thing worth knowing: Alhora only prints one for books with more
than three chapters, on the grounds that a three-chapter book doesn't
really need an index of itself.
It arrived in 1.24.0 and we never actually told anyone, which is on us.
Shipped in v1.24.0would there be a way to see what we can do to minimize our file size, or see what is taking up space in the manuscript? or what would we change to lessen the …
Great suggestion, and shipped :)
Shipped in v1/25/0Hello! I'd love to have the option of the front / back matter pages start on the right side! Right now, my dedication page starts on the left and Chapter 1 starts on the …
Hi Jade, good spot. It works for chapters, but not for front matter or back matter. We will copy the code across to work on front and back matter too!
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Resolved!
Shipped in v1.25.0I was looking for this in Alhora: how do i save my project? What outcome would make this useful?
Hi Emily, by default, your projects always autosaves automatically after every few words you take, so you can be confident that your work is safe. For reassurance, in the top right, there is a ... menu. Save button also exists there :)
Shipped in v1.00.0Add chapter wordcount as well as the total wordcount of the project. I've tried to find an option somewhere, to see if I've missed it, but I couldn't find it, so if it's there …
This just shipped with the latest version. You can now see this in 2 ways:
1) The chapter pane, has number of words under the chapter.
2) Chapter Pulse view, click View at the top and select pulse.
Hope this helps!
Shipped in v1.29.1Hey James, I wounder if there is a way to name a Chapter which is only to have a picture on it, but I do not want the name to some in the book, …
Two questions, and they turn out to have one answer each — one that already existed and one that was genuinely broken.
A chapter that shows only a picture, with no name printed: this is already there, and it's called Contents name. Every section has one. Whatever you type in it is what you see in the Contents pane on the left, and it is never printed in the book. So you can call it "Chapter One artwork", find it easily while you're working, and have the page itself print nothing but your picture. Leave the section's own title empty and the page stays bare.
The second one was a real bug, and you found it. When you added an image page, you got a grey placeholder with no way to click it — the only route in was dragging a picture from the Assets panel, and that quietly added a SECOND image block rather than filling the empty one. No wonder it felt broken.
Fixed in 1.28.0: the placeholder is now the button. Click it and you can pick a picture you've already brought into the book, or import a new one on the spot.
Thank you for reporting it. It had been sitting there since image pages shipped.
Shipped in v1.28.0I have one chapter which is written as a letter to my book subject, I do not want this to have new lines indented. Just all left aligned. I have also tried to put …
Built, and it works exactly the way you described wanting it.
Select the chapter in the Contents pane on the left, and in its settings you'll find a tick called "Indent the first line of each paragraph". Untick it, and that one chapter sits flush left while every other chapter in the book keeps its indents. Your letter chapter can now be a letter.
It works on front and back matter too, so a list, an acknowledgements page or a playlist can refuse indents the same way.
Thank you for describing the workaround you'd tried — putting it all in one paragraph — because that told me straight away that this was a real gap and not a setting you'd missed. It genuinely wasn't there before. It is now.
Shipped in v1.28.0I am trying to set an ornament for the ebook and kindle versions only as the print book will have full chapter title page art, and no ornament. I am clicking on print and …
You weren't doing anything wrong — the setting you were looking for didn't exist, and the way the app was laid out made it look like it did. Sorry for the time you spent on that.
Here's what was happening. The ornament lives on your style, and a style is one thing your whole book shares. Switching the preview between print and ebook/Kindle only changed what you were looking at, not which edition you were editing — so removing the ornament removed it from both, every time.
Fixed in 1.28.0. In Style Studio, underneath the ornament you've chosen, there's now a row called "Show it in" with two boxes: Printed book, and Ebook. Untick Printed book and leave Ebook ticked, and you get precisely what you asked for — full-page chapter title art in the print edition with no ornament, and the ornament in the ebook and Kindle files.
One tidy detail while I was in there: an ornament the ebook no longer shows is also no longer packed into the EPUB file, so you're not carrying an image no reader will ever see.
Shipped in v1.28.0