Scrolling StoriesPhone and desktop
Composing for portrait as well as landscape.
Reading options
Readers open Reading options beside Chapters. Use less data shows smaller photos and waits for a reader to load a video or map detail. It keeps every word and the reader's place. The choice is remembered in this browser on this site. Sound is a separate choice.
A photo without a small copy has a Load photo button. Some stories need simpler styling; readers can choose Use simpler styling or return to Use standard quality. Read as a page, when the author offers it, is in the same panel and opens the article at standard quality.
The choice belongs to this site's browser storage. Embedded stories, custom domains, another site's component and downloaded files may remember separate choices. The article, PDF and EPUB keep standard quality; the article also works with JavaScript off.
Read later
Sign in to save public listed stories for another day or another device. Press the bookmark on a story card, or Save for later in Reading options. Open Read later in your account menu to find your saved stories, newest saved first. Only you can see this list, including when you hide social listings. You can use it while waiting for an authoring invite, on every plan.
Remove from saved takes a story off your list. Removing it from Read later offers Undo, which restores its earlier place if it is still available. Saving it again while it is already saved keeps its place. Reading to the end or following its author does not remove it.
A story disappears from your list while it is no longer public and listed. Saving a story never gives you access to it. Previews, stories placed on other websites, and downloaded stories do not offer saving.
Portrait and landscape
Readers hold a phone upright, or sideways, or open the story in a wide window on a computer. A story is designed for one of two shapes, Portrait or Landscape. In the story panel, Designed for, under Reading, sets it. A reader whose device is held the other way is asked to turn it.
On a computer, the two buttons beside the preview show the story in your window or in a phone's shape.
Composing the second shape
If you want portrait readers to get a version made for them, compose the story a second time. The beats stay the same, and you arrange them again for the other shape.
- Turn on Also compose for portrait, in the story panel under Reading, or in the bar above the preview. For a story designed for portrait, it reads Also compose for landscape.
- Switch the preview to the other shape with the buttons beside the switch. They now read Landscape and Portrait. The panel's head says Composing for portrait while you are in the second shape.
- Change what you want. Select a beat, and move its text, change its motion or its look.
A beat you have changed for the second shape shows a button at the foot of its panel, Follow landscape, which puts it back to the first shape's values.
What is shared
Style, motion and position changes apply only to readers in the second shape. Words and photos are shared.
- Shared: the beats and their order, how long each lasts, the words, the photos, the chapters, and a beat's or page's font and box. While you compose the second shape, Pace and Runs across are hidden, because they can't differ.
- Can differ: a beat's motion, intensity, transition, look, text style, text position and animation, a photo's focus point, a map's camera and zoom, and a page's side. The story's defaults can differ too, including the size and width of text.
Turning it off
Turn the switch off, and readers in the second shape are asked to turn their device again. What you composed is kept, and comes back when you turn the switch on. A message after you turn it off says so, and Undo restores it.
To throw away what you composed and start again, press the reset button beside the switch in the story panel, Start the portrait version again. For a story designed for portrait, it reads Start the landscape version again. Every beat and the story's defaults follow the first shape again, apart from each page's side. A message says so, and Undo brings it all back.