Getting started

Install Jerome, activate it, start your first project and find your way around the workspace.

Install and activate

Download the installer for your computer from the Download page and run it. The Windows setup has a page called Optional downloads: tick what you want, such as a language pack or the World map. The pack for your computer’s language starts ticked, and nothing is downloaded during the setup itself.
Open Jerome. The first time, it shows Activate Jerome.
Paste the licence key from your purchase email into Licence key and choose Activate.

If you ticked anything in the Windows setup, Jerome then opens Settings › Downloads and fetches it, showing the progress of each item. You can cancel there, and if you close Jerome first, what is left carries on the next time it starts. On any computer, you can download the same things from that page at any time.

Activation needs an internet connection once. After that Jerome works offline for as long as you like, with no time limit: when it can reach the internet it confirms the key quietly as it starts, and when it cannot it simply carries on. If you cannot find your key, see Retrieve my key.

The Projects page

Jerome opens on Projects, a list of the projects you have opened recently, newest first. You can filter it by project type or by language. Remove from recent projects only takes a project off the list; it never deletes it.

Jerome’s Projects page: on the left Projects, Marketing, Settings and About; on the right a list of recent projects, each with its type, when it was last opened and where it is kept.

Each project is an ordinary folder on your computer. You can keep it wherever you like, back it up and copy it as you would any other folder. To open one that is not in the list, choose Open a project and pick its folder.

Start a new project

Choose New project. Everything is in one dialog:

Project name.
Project type: the kind of writing. It is fixed once the project is made.
Authored language: the language you write in.
Parent folder location: where the project’s folder goes. The dialog shows the folder it will create.

The New project dialog: the project’s name, then the nine project types as cards, each named after a writer, with Austen, Book, chosen, and Start from a file below.

Each type’s card carries the name of someone who did that kind of work well, such as Austen for a Book or Champollion for a Translation. The project types are:

Type	For
Book	A novel, a memoir or a thesis, written in chapters
Translation	Translating a text, its source beside your translation
Glossing	An annotated edition of someone else’s text
Theatre script	A stage play, or a musical with With music (a musical) switched on
Film script	A screenplay
Comic script	Pages, panels, captions and balloons
Transcription	Typing out a scanned PDF shown beside the text
Poetry collection	Poems, line by line
Manuscript review	Editing an author’s Word file and sending it back

Some types ask for one more thing in the same dialog: a Translation asks for its source language and texts, a Transcription for the PDF to transcribe, and so on. A Book or a script can start from a file you already have, with Start from a file (optional).

The workspace

A project opens in its workspace.

A book open in Jerome: the binder of chapters on the left, the page in the middle and the inspector with comments on the right.

The rail, at the far left, switches the left panel between the binder, Research, Assets, the Bin, Search, Export and Workspace settings.
The binder lists the project’s documents and folders: chapters, scenes, poems.
The page in the middle is where you write.
The inspector, on the right, holds tabs such as Comments, Changes, Notes, Details and Dictionaries. It starts closed; open it with the button in the top bar.

The top bar also has the focus mode button, Workspace settings (for this project), Settings (for Jerome itself) and Close.

Saving

There is no Save button to remember. Jerome saves a couple of seconds after you stop typing, and again whenever you switch documents or close the project. The status bar shows Saved when it is done. If you want to be sure, press Ctrl+S.

Useful shortcuts

What	Windows and Linux	Mac
Save now	Ctrl+S	Cmd+S
Search the whole project	Ctrl+Shift+F	Cmd+Shift+F
Show or hide the inspector	Ctrl+Alt+I	Cmd+Option+I
Look up the selected word	Ctrl+Shift+K	Cmd+Shift+K
Bold, italic, underline	Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+U	Cmd+B, Cmd+I, Cmd+U
Heading level 1 to 6	Ctrl+Alt+1 to 6	Cmd+Option+1 to 6
Insert a special character	Ctrl+Shift+U	Cmd+Shift+U
Read aloud, pause and resume	F9	F9
Add a footnote	Ctrl+Alt+F	Ctrl+Option+F
Add an endnote	Ctrl+Alt+D	Ctrl+Option+D
Find	Ctrl+F	Cmd+F
Find and replace	Ctrl+H	Cmd+Option+F
Comment	Ctrl+Shift+M	Cmd+Shift+M
Accept the change at the caret	Ctrl+Shift+A	Cmd+Shift+A
Discard the change at the caret	Ctrl+Shift+D	Cmd+Shift+D
Rename in the binder	F2	F2

Every shortcut is listed in Settings › Keyboard shortcuts.

Settings, Keyboard shortcuts: every shortcut in Jerome, listed in one place.

Before you rely on Jerome away from a connection, read Before you go offline.

When the writing is done, Export in the rail makes Word and other files, and for prose projects an EPUB, a typeset PDF, a cover and an audiobook: see Import and export. For a trailer or a website, Marketing is on the Projects page: see Marketing.