Calamus operates on a single document per book. Drafting, structure, world building, version history and formatting all address that document, so no stage requires exporting from one tool and importing into another.
What runs where
The web application runs in a browser on any operating system. The Mac and iPad applications are native builds that store the book locally, continue to work without a connection, and reconcile when one returns. Calamus Ideas, for iPhone, captures notes and quotes, logs writing sessions and runs the focus timer; it is not a drafting application. All of them use one account and one set of books.
The areas of the application
Each area has its own page in this section. They divide as follows.
- Writing and structure: the Editor for prose, the Binder for the document tree, the Outliner and the Corkboard for order and summary, and Snapshots for version history.
- The Atlas: World Building for the Codex, the Moodboard for reference images, and Research for sources. These store material about the book rather than the book itself.
- Publishing and sharing: Compile, which produces the EPUB and PDF, and the social queue, which publishes approved extracts to accounts you connect.
How the areas connect
The Binder, the Outliner and the Corkboard are three views of one document tree, so reordering in any of them reorders the manuscript. A name tagged in the Editor is linked to its Codex entry, and the link resolves in both directions. Compile reads the same document that was drafted, in the order set in the Binder, so nothing is exported before formatting begins.
Where to begin
The Editor and the Binder account for most of the early work on a new project. The remaining areas can be adopted when a book requires them; none is a prerequisite for drafting.