Storyist 4 for macOS Release Notes

What's New in 4.3.9 (August 2025)

• The Settings window now includes a popup to let you override the ruler display units provided by your Mac's locale.
• The Text Format Inspector now allows you to delete default styles that are no longer in use. Previously, certain style editing operations resulted in more than one default style.
• Fixes an interface freeze that could occur when creating or redefining a style when a text field in the inspector has focus.
• Fixes an issue that could cause the Text Editing pane in the Settings app to be blank when running the Mac App Store version on macOS 13.

What's New in 4.3.8 (April 2025)

• The Text Format Inspector now correctly reports when line spacing is overriden.

What's New in 4.3.7 (November 2024)

• Storyist no longer crashes in certain circumstances when undoing header/footer changes.

What's New in 4.3.6 (October 2024)

• Storyist now uses the document page setup information instead of the default setting when exporting PDFs via the Export menu.

What's New in 4.3.5 (October 2024)

• Fixes a case where blank pages were generated when exporting PDFs from the export panel.
• Fixes the disabled "Empty Trash" menu item in trash controller.
• The pangram is no longer editable in the style editor.
• The status context menu is now properly enabled in the outliner.
• Fixes a bug that caused Set Image Size to be presented when there is no image selected.

What's New in 4.3.4 (December 2023)

• Storyist adopts the new macOS Sonoma cursor features when running on Sonoma. As a result, Storyist no longer offers a switch between the macOS and iOS cursor style (on Sonoma) in the Preferences window since the new macOS style is now essentially the same as the iOS style.
• Storyist no longer draws blank pages in certain circumstances when rulers are shown on macOS Sonoma.
• Storyist no longer generates blank pages in certain circumstances when exporting PDFs via File > Export on macOS Sonoma.
• Fixed issue that could cause text to jump in draft mode on macOS Sonoma.
• Fixed issue that caused word counts of headings to be incorrect in the outline view.

What's New in 4.3.3 (October 2023)

• macOS Sonoma compatibility.

What's New in 4.3.2 (October 2023)

• The PDF book generator is now faster and generates smaller PDFs.

What's New in 4.3.1 (September 2023)

• Fixed an issue that could cause the right-to-left paragraph designation (used for languages like Arabic and Hebrew) to not be saved in certain circumstances.

What's New in 4.3 (October 2022)

• Storyist 4.3 includes support for macOS 13 Ventura.
• The template chooser now provides two additional book templates; Classic Paperback and Modern Paperback.
• The Edit > Insert menu adds a command for inserting line breaks (soft returns).
• Fixes issue preventing tabs from being inserted if the paragraph style has a default tab spacing, but no tab stops set.
• The format inspector updates style menus immediately after you make changes using inspector text fields.
• Storyist no longer crashes on exporting a PDF after changing the pagination popup.

What's New in 4.2.6 (August 2022)

• Storyist now shows a Writing Direction menu item in the Format > Text menu that lets you specify the direction for a paragraph. Note: This menu item only appears if the "Preferred languages" list in the Language & Region preferences pane includes a right-to-left language like Arabic or Hebrew.
• Storyist now stores the writing direction, so text entered in a right-to-left language (e.g., Arabic) will appear correctly when the file is reopened.
• Strikethrough is now supported. To add strikethrough to selected text, choose Format > Font > Show Fonts, click the Strikethrough button (3rd from left), and select the desired strikethrough appearance.
• ePub exports with ampersands and other illegal HTML characters in the title or author metadata fields no longer cause warnings when displayed in the Apple Books apps.
• When exporting to ePub, files containing text with only section-level outline levels (i.e., no heading levels) are now exported using the file name as the chapter heading.
• Values set using the Format > Font > Kern, Format > Font > Ligature, and Format > Font > Baseline are now restored properly when you reopen a file.
• Storyist no longer presents the Word Count field in the list of fields you can display in a sheet. The word count is still available in the status view in the toolbar.
• Fixed an issue that prevented a link selected in the link dialog from being inserted in the document in certain circumstances.
• Storyist no longer crashes on Big Sur and later when deleting a user-created text file template from the template chooser.

What's New in 4.2.5 (January 2022)

• The Getting Started guide has been updated to reflect recent changes.
• Changes made to header/footer styles now appear immediately. Previously, changes made in the style editor might not appear in the header until you clicked away from the header.
• It is now easier to select templates, index cards, and files. Previously, clicking one of these items could cause a drag to start if your mouse tracking speed was set to Fast.

What's New in 4.2.4 (October 2021)

• Storyist 4.2.4 includes support for macOS 12 Monterey.
• Storyist no longer crashes in certain circumstances on macOS 11.5.1 and later after editing a story sheet.

What's New in 4.2.3 (April 2021)

• Comments are now sized properly when typing in the comment inspector on Big Sur.
• The delete button now appears when you mouse over a comment in the inspector on Big Sur.
• Storyist again imports Final Draft and Fountain files on Macs that have no other apps that supported these formats.
• Storyist correctly sets the uppercase text transform in styles imported from Final Draft.
• Style names the text inspector have a more appropriate color when running in dark mode.

What's New in 4.2.2 (December 2020)

• Styles are now preserved when pasting copied paragraphs. A bug introduced in 4.2 prevented style definitions from being attached to the pasted paragraph(s).
• Storyist no longer crashes in certain circumstances when exporting from a project containing a file with no title.
• It is no longer possible to drag a chapter *inside* another chapter in the project view. You can still accomplish this with copy/paste.
• Sheets no longer attach the system services menu items to the context menus on the page.
• Storyist no longer crashes when presenting a sheet context menu for a section that has no title.
• Storyist no longer crashes when you select a Storyist file in Finder and choose File > Print.
• Storyist no longer crashes when opening some Scrivener files.
• Storyist now gives a more meaningful error message when you have reached the maximum number of license installs.

What's New in 4.2.1 (November 2020)

Storyist 4.2.1 fixes an issue that could cause the search field in the project sidebar to be displayed incorrectly on Big Sur.

What's New in 4.2 (November 2020)

Storyist 4.2 adds support for macOS 11 Big Sur and Apple Silicon and includes new features and bug fixes.

Big Sur Support

• Storyist runs natively on Apple Silicon.
• Storyist adopts the unified toolbar design when running on Big Sur.
• The split controls have moved from the main toolbar to the navigation bars at the top of each split. To split a view, click the right-most button. Holding the Option key changes the orientation of the split. You can close the split by clicking the x-mark next to the split button.
• You can now set the sidebar text size by opening the Appearance tab in the Theme pane of the Storyist Preferences window and setting the sidebar size to Small, Medium, Large, or System.
• The sidebar adopts the new, flat icons in the sidebar, along with the new outline style.

Show Previous Versions

• If your project is stored in iCloud, the Show Previous Versions window now displays versions stored in iCloud in addition to versions stored on your computer. Clicking the new cloud download button makes them available on your computer.
• The Show Previous Versions window now includes a Share toolbar item that lets your export your previous versions (comments and all) using the standard macOS sharing services. You can, for example, send them via Mail and Messages.
• The Show Previous Versions window now includes a toolbar item that lets you open the versions browser. Previously, you could only open the versions browser using the File > Revert To > Browse All Versions command.
• The Show Previous Versions window now includes a file size column that shows the size of the versions (if they are downloaded to your computer).
• Manually created versions are now available (on the Mac on which they were created) even if macOS prunes them from the list of previous versions.

Window Tabs

• The File > New menu and the Project view context menu now include items to open a new window tab in addition to opening a new window.
• The Add (+) button in the tab bar now creates a new tab for the current document rather than creating a new project.
• Window tabs now show the selected project item title in addition to the document title.
• The General pane of the Storyist Preferences window now has a checkbox to show/hide the document titles in the tab titles.

Misc Enhancements

• It is now possible to import word count session data using the Import Word Count Data menu item in the writing goals popover. This feature is useful if you want to edit session data manually.
• Exported session data (Export Word Count Data) now includes the starting and ending word count for each writing session. Previously, only the total count for the session was available.
• The "New" context menu items now have a "New Book" command on Big Sur.
• The Storyboard view now handles background-aware colors on Big Sur.

Bug Fixes

• Toolbar customizations are now properly restored after quitting the app.
• Fixed a bug in the outline template editor (available from the File Info inspector) that prevented the list from updating in certain circumstances after you made changes.
• Fixed a bug that caused Storyist to crash when switching a book from outline mode (View > as Outline) to text mode (View > as Text).
• Fixed crash that could occur when closing a split view leaving the book editor in the remaining view.
• The Duplicate and Delete items are no longer enabled in the context menu of the Project item.
• Fixed a bug preventing multiple windows from being restored when reopening a project. Previously, only the first previously open window would be restored.
• Fixed a bug that caused section names to be removed in certain circumstances.

What's New in 4.1.2 (March 2020)

Storyist 4.1.2 includes several minor improvements.

• The comment highlight color is now more readable in dark mode.
• Hyphenation defaults to "off" when exporting PDFs using the File > Export command. You can still enable hyphenation in the book editor.

What's New in 4.1.1 (October 2019)

Storyist 4.1.1 addresses several issues you may encounter when running on macOS 10.15.0 Catalina.

• When running on macOS 10.15 Catalina, Storyist no longer quits unexpectedly in the text editor in certain circumstances. (The crash log contains the string "_needsGeometryInWindowDidChangeNotificationCount" when the bug is triggered).
• When running on macOS 10.15 Catalina, the Bold and Italic menu items are reliably enabled. Previously, an issue in macOS 10.15.0 prevented this from happening.
• Storyist non longer quit unexpectedly when deleting multiple chapters or sections in the Project view.

What's New in 4.1 (October 2019)

Storyist 4.1 includes support for macOS 10.15 Catalina and includes bug fixes and usability enhancements.

• macOS 10.15 Catalina brings a number of under-the-hood security enhacements. Starting in Catalina, all apps distributed outside the App Store need to be "notarized" by Apple in order to run on your Mac. Storyist 4.1 is notarized, and includes support for Catalina's Hardened Runtime features.
• Storyist now offers the option of using an iOS-style cursor in text files and sheets. iOS-style cursors are slightly wider, and are easier to see. To change the cursor style, visit the Text Editing pane in the Storyist preferences.
• The text cursor is no longer clipped (too narrow) at the page margins when using certain zoom factors.
• The cursor is now white when the editor is running in dark mode on Mojave or later. This matches the Apple-recommended defaults.
• Fixed a crash that could occur in rare circumstances when emptying the project trash.
• The style inspector override button (the red disclosure button) is now updated immediately when the underlying formatting changes. Previously, the override button would not be updated until some time later on Mojave and later.
• Fixed an issue that prevented full-screen text colors defined in the theme from being applied correctly on Mojave and later.
• The "Redefine style from selection" command no longer discards the "next style" value.
• Merging a duplicated text file with the file from which it was duplicated no longer results in incorrect titles in the outline.
• The sidebar text in the template chooser is now displayed with the correct text color when running in dark mode on macOS Mojave or later.
• Fixed an issue with the display of non-sequential heading levels in the Project view. Previously, if the outline level had gaps in outline levels (for example, a heading 1 followed by a heading 3) or started with a heading level other than 1, the indentation of the heading in the Project view could be incorrect.

What's New in 4.0 (March 2019)

• Dark Mode—Storyist 4 for macOS sports a beautiful new content-aware dark mode when running on Mojave or later. Many apps only support dark mode when your Mac is in dark mode, but Storyist 4 takes it a step further. Dark mode is available even if your Mac is running with the Light appearance and you can choose either dark text on a light background or light text on a dark background.
• Quick Navigation—Getting around your project has never been easier. You can use the new Go To command to get to any project view with a few keystrokes.
• Enhanced PDF Export—Sometimes you just need to make a PDF from several files in your project. Storyist 4 lets you quickly assemble and export a PDF without needing to create a book. This is useful for adding a title page to a manuscript or for assembling a couple chapters to send to your critique group.
• And More—Storyist 4 comes with many other enhancements, including an updated outliner, a more flexible full screen view, and animation, performance and usability improvements.