How to Add, Rename, Reorder, and Number Chapters

Your chapters live in the Table of Contents in the left sidebar of Write. Everything on this page happens there or in the chapter title bar at the top of the writing canvas.

Add a Chapter

The main control is the full-width New Chapter button at the bottom of the Table of Contents.

You can also use:

• File → New → Chapter in the menu bar
• More → Insert chapter in the formatting toolbar
• The ⋯ menu on an act header → Create Chapter (act headers only appear once your book has more than one act)

New chapters go to the end

Every one of these adds your chapter at the end of the book. None of them inserts it where you are currently writing, including the toolbar item labelled Insert chapter. To place a chapter earlier, add it and then drag it into position. See Put a Chapter in the Middle.

A new chapter starts with no title. It shows as Chapter 7 until you name it, then as Chapter 7: The Storm.

Why Is My New Chapter Numbered Higher Than I Expected?

A new chapter's number is one above the highest chapter number anywhere in your book.

So in a book with three chapters, the chapter you add becomes Chapter 4, even if you were standing in chapter 2 when you added it.

In a book with more than one act this can look stranger still. Adding a chapter to Act 1 of a book whose last chapter is 11 gives you Chapter 12, sitting inside Act 1 above the chapters numbered 3, 4 and 5. Nothing is broken. A drag-reorder tidies the numbers up. See Reorder Chapters.

Put a Chapter in the Middle

1. Add a chapter with New Chapter. It lands at the end of the book.
2. In the Table of Contents, hover the new chapter's row. A grip handle fades in on the left, where the status dot normally sits.
3. Drag the row to where you want it and drop it on the chapter it should follow.

Every chapter in the book is renumbered to run 1, 2, 3... in the new order, so the chapters after your new one shift down on their own.

Break One Chapter Into Two

There is no split-at-the-cursor command today. Here is the way to do it:

1. Add a chapter with New Chapter.
2. Drag it directly below the chapter you want to divide.
3. Open the original chapter, select the text that belongs in the second half, and cut it.
4. Open the new chapter and paste it in.
5. Give both halves their titles.

The chapters after the split renumber themselves as soon as you finish the drag in step 2.

Rename a Chapter

The chapter title at the top of the writing canvas is the button that opens your chapter list. Clicking it opens a dropdown of every chapter in the book, which is how you jump between them.

Renaming lives inside that same menu:

1. Open the chapter you want to rename.
2. Click the chapter title at the top of the canvas.
3. Choose Rename chapter..., the first item in the menu.
4. Edit the Title, and the Subtitle if you want one, then choose Save.

Rename only works on the chapter you are in

Rename chapter... appears only for the chapter you currently have open. If you do not see it, select that chapter first and reopen the menu. There is no rename in the sidebar's chapter row menu: acts can be renamed in place there, chapters cannot.

Chapter Subtitles

The same panel has a Subtitle field, for a note like "Jude POV, Friday". Subtitles appear as a second line against each chapter in the chapter dropdown, and after the chapter title in book mode. The title bar itself stays clean, so nothing visibly changes right after you save one. Reopen the chapter dropdown to see it.

Why Aren't My Chapters Renumbering?

If a chapter's title begins with the word "Chapter", we treat that as a label you wrote yourself and show it exactly as typed. That chapter stops being numbered automatically, and it keeps the number in its title no matter where you move it.

A title like Chapter 12: The Duel or Chapter One stops updating. So does a short sub-label like 9a or 12C, which is intended to sit alongside the chapter above it.

To restore automatic numbering, rename the chapter and take the number out of the title. Use The Duel rather than Chapter 12: The Duel. We add the "Chapter 12:" part for you.

Imported books often arrive this way

Books brought in from another app usually carry titles like "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2" that came from the original file. Those titles are what freeze the numbering. Clear the numbers out of the titles and your book renumbers itself from then on.

Reorder Chapters

Hover a chapter row in the Table of Contents. The grip handle fades in at the left of the row. It is hidden until you hover, so the row can look immovable at rest. Drag the row and drop it on another chapter.

A Saving order... pill appears while the change is stored. Every narrative chapter in the book is renumbered 1, 2, 3... in the new reading order, across all acts, and that is saved.

Dropping a chapter onto a row inside a different act moves it into that act.

Prologues and epilogues sit outside the drag list. They are never dragged and never renumbered.

Fix the Whole Book at Once

If your order has drifted, use Show reorder preview at the top of the Table of Contents. We propose an order, show it to you with a Preview sequence number against each row, and tell you which approach we used: numbers already in your titles, alphabetical, or your saved order.

Nothing changes until you choose Approve. Reject cancels. Your chapter titles are never rewritten either way, only the order and the numbers.

Gaps in the Numbers

Deleting a chapter does not renumber the rest. Delete Chapter 3 of 5 and the list reads 1, 2, 4, 5. This is deliberate: the chapters you kept do not move around under you.

To close the gap, drag any chapter in the Table of Contents, or use Show reorder preview and approve it. Either one renumbers the book 1, 2, 3...

Add a Prologue or an Epilogue

• + Add Prologue sits at the very top of the Table of Contents.
• + Add Epilogue sits at the very bottom, below the Drafts section.

Each button disappears once your book has one, since a book has at most one of each. Prologues and epilogues are labelled by name rather than by number (they are never "Chapter 0"), and they stay pinned to the top and bottom of your book.

Park a Chapter Without Deleting It

To take a chapter out of the reading order while keeping it:

1. Hover the chapter row in the Table of Contents.
2. Choose ⋯ → Move to Drafts.

The chapter moves to a Drafts section at the bottom of the list, keeping its text and its number. Choose ⋯ → Add to book on it to bring it back at that number.

A chapter in Drafts still holds its number, so the book keeps a gap where it used to sit until you reorder.

Delete and Restore a Chapter

Hover the chapter row, then choose ⋯ → Delete Chapter and confirm. The chapter moves to the Trash rather than disappearing, and you can restore it later. See Trash.

Deleting never renumbers the remaining chapters.

What Stops These Actions

Adding, deleting, moving to Drafts, and dragging are all switched off while a book is frozen. Renaming still works.

Chapters on Mobile

The mobile app handles chapters differently. Notably, chapters cannot be reordered there. See Chapters and Acts on Mobile.