Akapitly step by step: a guide for beginners

Akapitly is a single screen: you write on the left and see the finished manuscript on the right as you go. No account, no install, nothing sent anywhere — it all happens in your browser, on your computer. This guide takes you from a blank page to a finished file.

It works best on a computer with a keyboard. The page runs on a phone, but writing there is awkward.

What goes where

The screen splits in two. On the left is the work panel: the Text field, the buttons, the chapter list and the settings. On the right is the preview — your text after formatting. Along the top you will find the Help, Info and Guide tabs, where everything is described in brief.

Step 1. Get your text in

You have two routes — pick whichever is easier:

1. Paste. Copy text from anywhere (Word, Google Docs, a notes app) and paste it into the Text field on the left.
2. Load a file. Click Load file and point it at a document: .txt, .md, .docx, or — experimentally — .pdf. Save an old .doc as .docx first.

Your text is never copied or sent anywhere — it stays on your computer. Very long text (roughly above ~500,000 characters) can slow things down; if that happens, split it into chapters (more on that below).

Step 2. Click Format

Format is the main button. It tidies the typography to standard manuscript conventions — curling your straight quotes, fixing the ellipsis and dashes, removing spaces before punctuation, indenting paragraphs — and refreshes the preview on the right. You click it whenever you want to see the current result.

The US / UK switch at the top of the Format panel decides which house style it follows. I break down exactly what Format changes in the pieces on dialogue and preparing a manuscript.

Step 3. Give the chapter a title

The simplest way: write the title as the first line of the text and leave First line is the chapter heading — centered, italic ticked — Akapitly will center it and set it in italics. You can also type a number or title in the separate Chapter number/title (optional) field.

Whole text or chapters?

This is the most common question at the start. There are two ways to work:

As one piece — simplest to begin with. Paste everything into a single chapter and format it. It works well for a short story or a shorter text. Until you add more chapters, Akapitly treats the whole thing as one.

In chapters — the way to handle a book. You keep each chapter separate, which buys you three concrete things: in the export each one starts on a new page, the chapters build the table of contents (in an EPUB) and the running head, and the work itself is lighter with a long text.

You add chapters like this:

1. Click + New chapter under the Chapters list — a new entry appears on it.
2. Click a chapter in the list to open it. Its contents load into the Text field on the left.
3. Paste or write that chapter's contents and give it a title.
4. Repeat for the next chapters.

Remember one thing: the Text field always shows the active chapter — the one clicked in the list. You move between chapters by clicking their names.

Step 4. Check the preview and set the format

On the right you see, in real time, how the text looks. In the Document format panel pick a profile: Manuscript (for submitting to an agent or publisher), Print book or e-Book. The profile sets a sensible starting point, and you can change any value — font, line spacing, margins — afterwards.

The preview is continuous and deliberately doesn't split the text into pages — that's normal, not a bug. Pages appear only after export, in the program you open the file in.

Step 5. Save your work

This matters more than it seems. Akapitly saves your progress automatically, but only in this browser — clearing your browser data or using private mode wipes the save.

Step 6. Download the finished file

When the text is ready, you export it with the buttons above the preview. Download chapter saves the current chapter, Download all saves them together, as a .docx file (offline it saves an RTF, which Word also opens). In the e-Book profile a Download EPUB button appears as well.

The export details are covered in the pieces on the manuscript for submission and making an e-book.

Where to go next

That's enough to write, format and export a text. When you want to go further, Akapitly also has tools for style analysis — highlighting sentence and paragraph rhythm, catching repetition, AI Detox and a noise meter — all covered in the guide to analysis in Akapitly.