Help, Bringing work in and out
Send your book to an editor and bring it back
Send a Word file with Track Changes switched on, then import the edited copy and go through every change and comment, accepting what you want.
Most editors and beta readers work in Word. Onwarder can send them a Word file set up for editing, then read their marked-up copy when it comes back and walk you through each change. Nothing in your book changes until you say so.
Send it
- Open the book. From the … menu, choose Send to an editor…. (It is also offered as a Word option in Export.)
- Under Chapters, choose Whole book or just the chapters you want read.
- Tick Add my scene summaries as comments if your editor would find them useful.
- Check Your name for comments.
- Choose Save Word file.
The file is named for the book and the date, for example The Salt Road for editing 15 Oct 2026.docx, and Track Changes is already switched on, so every edit your editor makes comes back marked. Onwarder remembers exactly what you sent.
Keep writing while it is away. Onwarder sorts out your new changes from theirs when it comes back.
Bring it back
- Choose Import a manuscript and pick the file your editor returned. You can also use Review an editor’s changes… in the book’s … menu.
- Onwarder recognises it: This is the copy of The Salt Road you sent for editing on 15 October. Review the editor’s changes?
- Choose Review changes. (Choose Import as a new book instead if you want it as a separate book.)
Onwarder tells you what it found, for example Jo Fenwick made 214 changes and 37 comments in 31 scenes.
Go through the changes
The book opens with the Editor’s changes bar at the top. Each change is marked in the text: added words underlined, removed words struck through. The scene list shows how many changes are waiting in each scene.
For each change, choose:
- Accept to take it.
- Reject to keep your original.
- Later to leave it for now.
Onwarder moves on to the next change each time. Next change and Previous step through without deciding, and Accept all in scene takes every change in the scene at once. With the bar selected, the keys A, R and L accept, reject and leave for later.
Comments appear beside the text they belong to. For each, choose Done when you have dealt with it, or Keep as a note to move it into the scene’s notes.
Your editor may also have changed things without Track Changes switched on. Onwarder finds those too by comparing with what you sent, and marks them Not tracked in Word.
If you changed the same paragraph
If you edited a paragraph after sending the book and your editor changed it too, Onwarder marks it: You’ve changed this paragraph since you sent it. The choices become Use theirs and Keep mine. Compare with what you sent shows all three versions side by side.
Finish
Choose Finish review. Onwarder tells you what happened, for example Applied 180 changes in 31 scenes. 34 left for later., with Undo to put every scene back in one go.
Every scene that changed also keeps a version from just before, called Before Jo Fenwick’s changes, in its scene history. So you can always get your own words back, even long after Undo has gone.
If you stop partway, your place is kept. The book’s … menu shows how many are left, for example Review an editor’s changes (34 left). Changes you left for later, and comments you have not resolved, go out again in the next round.
On a phone
The review works on a phone too. Each scene opens on its own page with its changes, and a bar at the bottom has Reject and Accept with arrows either side. The … menu has Later, Accept all in this scene and Finish review.