saga-soft/novelWriter v26.3b1

Version 2026.3 Beta 1

on GitHub

Release Notes

This is a beta release of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please be careful when using this version on live writing projects, and make sure you take frequent backups.

See the website for complete Release Notes.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where rebuilding the project index triggered a re-highlight of the open document for each tag updated. By @vkbo. Issue #3092. PR #3093.
• Fixed a bug where a project backup that failed while writing the archive left a broken zip file behind. The incomplete archive is now deleted. By @vkbo. PR #3111.

Features

• The Outline panel has been redesigned from scratch as a new Story View panel, starting with a tree-like outline. Synopsis text wraps over multiple lines, and each entry shows how far into the story it lands, for tracking pacing. Comments and references can be shown as icons, with new dedicated icons for point-of-view and focus characters. Further options include showing document status, inactive partitions, and word counts with sub-headings included. Documents can be opened with a middle or double click, or with a keyboard shortcut. By @vkbo. Issues #1465, #2286, #3012, #3087 and #3100. PRs #2961, #3058, #3062, #3088 and #3103.
• Added basic right-to-left support. A new project setting lays out text right-to-left, and a new Preferences option forces a right-to-left interface, which otherwise follows the selected translation. The editor lays out each paragraph in its own direction, while the viewer, manuscript preview and all export formats follow the project direction, with right-to-left books binding on the right. By @vkbo. Issue #3097. PRs #3098, #3101 and #3103.
• Added basic single-level list support, using * for bullet lists and #. for numbered lists. The editor continues a list when Enter is pressed, and new toolbar buttons and menu entries have been added for lists, as well as for left, centre and right alignment. Lists pasted as formatted text are converted to Markdown lists. By @vkbo. Issues #1460 and #3099. PRs #3075 and #3101.
• Added support for Markdown style links on the form [text](url), and for file:// links. A new link button, menu entry and dialog have been added to the editor, and URLs dropped into the editor are formatted as links. By @vkbo. Issue #3025. PR #3028.
• Improved handling of copied projects and backups. When a copy of a project is detected in the recent projects list, the user is asked whether to treat it as a separate project. Opening a backup asks whether to restore it or keep it as a separate copy. Projects now contain a manifest file marking them as a project, backup or template. By @vkbo. Issues #2737 and #3047. PRs #3085 and #3086.
• Added gutter and double-sided page settings to ODT and DOCX manuscripts. Double-sided pages mirror the margins for book binding and enable a separate even page header format. The heading page break setting now has "No Break", "Any Page" and "Odd Page" options, allowing chapters to start on odd pages. By @vkbo. Issues #2976 and #3070. PRs #3068 and #3102.
• Added a manuscript build option to insert the document's status label below each heading. By @vkbo. Issue #2958. PR #3104.
• Added a "Uses" column to the tag panels below the viewer, counting how many headings reference each tag. By @vkbo. Issue #1686. PR #3091.
• The project tree pane can now be hidden by clicking the sidebar button of the tree view already showing, or by pressing Shift+F8. By @vkbo. Issue #3023. PR #3072.
• Added a Preferences option to enforce Unix line endings for all project files. By @vkbo. Issue #3055. PR #3090.

Improvements

• The Novel View can optionally include sub-headings in each heading's word count. By @vkbo. Issue #962. PR #3088.
• Footnote keys are now tracked in the project index, ensuring new keys never collide with existing ones. By @vkbo. PR #3062.

User Interface

• Removed the Novel Details tool, as its information is now mostly available elsewhere. By @vkbo. Issue #3043. PR #3044.
• Removed the Remix Icons theme, as its licence is no longer GPL compatible, and replaced the FontAwesome theme with Microsoft's Fluent UI icons in regular and filled styles. The Lucide icons have been updated to version 1.49.0, and padded to match the size of the Material icons. By @vkbo. Issues #3051 and #3069. PRs #3045, #3059, #3062 and #3071.

Accessibility

• Added missing accessible text to a large number of widgets, mostly reusing their existing labels, as tooltips are not exposed to screen readers. By @vkbo. PR #3089.

Internationalisation

• Urdu translation of the project export strings added by Ahmad. PR #3110.

Other Changes

• The editor and viewer have been moved into a shared wrapper class, as a first step towards unifying them. By @vkbo. PR #3082.
• Simplified the caching of icons, with no expected functional impact. By @vkbo. PR #3063.

Packaging

• Moved the PyPI release to a workflow, and removed the Launchpad release code and the scripts for local builds. By @vkbo. PR #3037.

Code Maintenance

• Added type annotations to all tests. By @vkbo. PR #3083.
• Fixed minor test coverage and typing issues. By @vkbo. PR #3094.

Downloads

Debian and Wheel packages are no longer added to the GitHub release. They can be downloaded from:

• Debian/Ubuntu/Mint: https://broadcasts.cloudsmith.com/saga-soft/testing
• Wheel: https://pypi.org/project/novelWriter