Read View
Boards are good for arranging ideas. Read View is for reading them. It shows the current board as one continuous document: each column becomes a section with its name as a heading, and its cards follow in order. Use it to review a draft, read through an outline, or check how scenes flow.
Open Read View
Section titled “Open Read View”- Whole board: select the Read View button (the eye) in the header, or press Cmd+Shift+R. Do the same again to return to the board.
- One column: select the eye button in the column’s header. Only that column switches to reading, and the rest of the board stays as it is.
Read View of a whole board leaves out the Archive column, the Reference column, and any column you’ve excluded from exports. Cards, columns and boards that are excluded from Play Mode are left out as well.
Choose what Read View shows
Section titled “Choose what Read View shows”Right-click the Read View button in the header to open the view options. On iPad and iPhone, touch and hold. The Read tab controls Read View, and the Board tab controls how cards look on the board.
| Option | Effect in Read View |
|---|---|
| Tags, Dates, Importance | Show or hide each kind of metadata |
| Images | Show or hide images |
| PDFs, Mermaid diagrams, Plots, Audio | Off hides them, Badge shows a small label you can open, Embed shows them in place |
| Markdown, Fountain | When off, cards written in that syntax are left out of Read View |
| Separators | Lines between cards |
| Skip empty columns | Leaves out columns that have no cards to show |
| Flatten instances | Shows embedded card instances as ordinary text |
| Raw — edit directly | Shows every card’s complete source, which you can edit in place |
Options you set from the header apply to the whole document. To give one column different options, right-click that column’s eye button instead. At the top of the column’s menu you can see whether it follows the document or how many options it overrides. Reset makes it follow the document again.
Edit while reading
Section titled “Edit while reading”With Raw — edit directly turned on, each card appears as its full source, including tags and other metadata, and you can edit it where it is. This is useful for revising a draft without switching back to the board.
To change the font and size used in Read View, open Settings → Typography and adjust Read View.
Read a translation
Section titled “Read a translation”If the document has translations, a Language selector appears above the text. Choose a language to read the story translated, or Original to return. See Translate a story.
Read beside the board
Section titled “Read beside the board”You can read and work on the board at the same time:
- On Mac, with Window mode set to Separate windows, select Open Read Window in the header. Read View opens in its own window and follows your changes on the board. The same button pauses and resumes the updates.
- On iPad and iPhone, and on Mac with Window mode set to Inside the app, choose Open Read View from the header’s menu to open a reading panel inside the app.