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Documentation Index

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Inkwell’s Beat Board (also known as Card Mode) is a virtual index card organizer built directly into your writing workspace. It allows you to step back from your script pages and view your story structure as a flat grid of cards, where each card represents a scene in your screenplay.

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What is the Beat Board?

Index cards have been the gold standard for structuring screenplays for decades. Inkwell modernizes this workflow by linking your index cards directly to your screenplay text.
  • Scene Heading Cards: Each scene heading (e.g., INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY) automatically creates a corresponding card on the Beat Board.
  • Dynamic Synopses: The body of each card displays the scene’s synopsis—lines in your script prefixed with an equals sign (=) that immediately follow the scene heading.
  • Two-Way Sync: Any changes to the order of cards on the Beat Board instantly rearrange the scenes in your actual screenplay document.

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Accessing the Beat Board

To switch your center canvas from the editor to the Beat Board:
  1. Locate the View Mode toggle in the status bar at the bottom of the window, or
  2. Go to View → Beat Board in the menu bar.
To return to the script editor, click the toggle again or plain-click any card to jump directly to that scene.

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Working with Cards

If your script contains scene headings, you will see them rendered as distinct cards on the Beat Board. If you have no scenes yet, the board will show a helpful empty state.

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Adding Card Synopses

To add content (the “story beats”) to your cards, use Fountain synopsis syntax in the editor: 
INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY
= Alice confronts Bob about the missing USB drive. Bob denies everything.

Alice sits across from Bob, tapping her fingers.
The line starting with = becomes the synopsis and is displayed as the body of that scene’s index card. If you don’t add a synopsis, the card will display a note reminding you to add one in the editor.
Keep your synopses concise (2-3 sentences). This ensures your index cards are easy to read and scan on the board.

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Selecting Cards

  • Plain Click: Clears any active selection and returns you to Script Mode, placing the cursor directly on the selected scene.
  • Cmd-Click (⌘-Click): Toggles the selection state of a card. This allows you to select multiple cards without jumping back to the script editor.
  • Shift-Click: Extends the selection from your last clicked card to the current card in chronological document order.
  • Background Click: Clicking on the empty background space of the Beat Board clears all active card selections.

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Reordering Scenes via Drag-and-Drop

You can reorder your script’s scenes directly from the Beat Board:
  1. Click and hold the header strip of the card you want to move.
  2. Drag the card to its new position in the grid.
  3. Observe the drop indicator stripe:
    • Hovering over the left half of a card indicates it will drop before that card.
    • Hovering over the right half indicates it will drop after that card.
  4. Release the mouse button to commit the move.
The text editor will automatically rearrange the scene heading and all of its associated action, dialogue, and parentheticals to match the new order.
Reordering scenes is a major change to your script layout. Because Inkwell features auto-save, you can easily revert accidental moves by pressing Cmd+Z (Undo) immediately after returning to Script Mode.

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Out of Scope & Future Refinements

The current version of the Beat Board focuses on core scene outline view and reordering. The following features are currently handled directly in the script editor or outline drawer rather than inline on the cards:
  • Editing card synopses text directly on the index card (this must be written in the editor using the = syntax).
  • Color-coding individual cards (card outlines are driven by your overall active theme).
  • Custom tagging or page counts per card.