Applies to ScribeWright 1.1.117

Writing Tools

Three revision tools live in the Tools tab. Each proposes; you dispose. Nothing rewrites your prose without a click from you.

The Review Windows

Spelling, the Contraction Checker, Layout Review, EPUBCheck Results and Markup Issues all work the same way: the scope (where it applies) and filters run along the top with Rescan at the right end; the findings list fills the middle, with a severity icon first where severities exist and the message column taking the remaining width; the primary actions sit bottom-left and Go To, Help and Close bottom-right. Double-click a row or press Enter to go to it, right-click for the same commands as the buttons, and press Esc to close. Each window remembers its size and column widths.

Contraction Checker

Tools ▸ Contractions… finds phrases that could contract ("do not" → "don’t", "it is" → "it’s"), useful when dialogue should sound spoken, or when you want to audit formality. Each hit shows in context with the suggested contraction; apply the ones you agree with. It’s smart about negatives: "it is not" suggests it isn’t, and already-contracted text ("who hasn’t") is left alone.

The window is modeless: you can edit the manuscript while it’s open. If you do, Apply disables until you Rescan, so it never applies a change against text that moved. Click a column header to sort the list by it (click again to reverse); the order survives a Rescan. Edit phrases… opens the phrase list if you want to add or retire patterns. Whether suggestions start pre-checked (the safe ones) or all unchecked is yours to choose in Preferences ▸ Contraction Checker; Uncheck All clears the list either way.

Layout Review (F9)

Tools ▸ Layout Review… checks the manuscript against the book’s formatting profile, the house-style rules listed in Formatting Rules: punctuation (curly quotes, dashes, ellipses, spacing), numbers, dialogue, structure (empty paragraphs, spacer breaks, scene breaks, headings, chapter numbering) and markup. Nothing is ever changed until you click a Fix button.

The window lists every finding: a severity icon (red for an error, amber for a warning, and blue for a suggestion; hover it for the word), the finding itself, its chapter and line, and Auto in the Fix column when the engine can repair it. The Details pane below shows the rule id and group, the statement, the snippet and the planned fix for the selected row. Along the top:

Scope: only the chapter you’re editing (the default, so opening the window never scans a long book unasked), or the whole book.
Group: narrow to one rule group.
Show suggestions: off by default, and remembered. Suggestions are house-style preferences (straight-to-curly quotes, spelled-out numbers…); errors and warnings are the near-certain defects and are always shown.

Buttons (right-click a row for the same commands):

Fix Selected (Enter’s default): apply the one finding.
Fix ▾: All of This Type (every finding of that rule in scope) or All… (everything fixable in scope, suggestions included, after a confirmation that lists the count per rule). Rules apply one at a time in profile order; each changed chapter is one edit you can undo.
Go To (or double-click / Enter on a row): select the finding in the editor, the way Find does (the Code pane follows when it is open).
Mark Intentional: silence this one finding; saved with the book so it stays quiet on every future review. (To silence a whole rule for a chapter or the book, edit the saved list in the .swj: RULE-ID|Chapter title or RULE-ID|*.)
Rescan: the window stays open while you edit (like the Contraction Checker); once the text changes under it the Fix buttons pause until you rescan, so a fix never lands on stale positions.
Rule Help (or F1 with a row selected): the selected rule’s entry in the Formatting Rules topic.

The window’s size and column widths are remembered. To turn a rule off for good, or change how severe it is, use Preferences ▸ Formatting rules ▸ Customize… (see Preferences).

A finding with no Auto in the Fix column is reported without a fix (an ambiguous straight quote, a chapter heading with no number): the engine won’t guess, so decide it yourself or mark it intentional.

After importing a Word document or opening an EPUB, the status bar shows a count of errors and warnings with a nudge to press F9; the text is not changed. Choose the profile in Book Setup ▸ General ▸ Formatting profile (fiction by default).

Index and Citation Checks

The nonfiction profile also checks the index markers and citations (see Non-fiction Books):

NF-008 (error): a citation whose key is not among the book’s sources; it would export as a broken link.
NF-009 (warning): an index marker with no main entry.
NF-022 (suggestion): a See or See Also that names no entry in the index.
NF-023 (suggestion, with a fix): one index term marked with different capital letters; the fix uses the spelling marked most often.
NF-024 (suggestion): a source nothing cites, while the Bibliography lists cited sources only.
NF-025 (suggestion): a web source without the date you read it.

Layout Review: the findings for a chapter, the rule behind the selected one, and the Fix buttons.

Auto-Fix (F8)

Tools ▸ Auto-Fix All Chapters repairs malformed XHTML: unclosed tags, stray markup from pasting out of a word processor or the web. It’s the "make it valid again" hammer; run it after a messy paste or before an export if Validate with EPUBCheck (F5) reports structural complaints. Chapters it can’t fully repair are listed so you can look yourself (the Code pane is the right tool for that).