FAQ: Text Conversations and Written Notes

November 21, 2022

We’re thrilled with the response to Vellum 3.4, which introduced new features for Text Conversations and Written Notes. With all of the excitement, we’ve also received some questions. Here are answers to the most common ones:

Questions & Answers

In ebooks, will Text Conversations and Written Notes resize as a reader changes font size?
Yes. The sizing is based on a reader’s font size and will change with their preferences.

Will the text within notes and conversations be accessible to screen reading systems?
Yes! All of the text is still included in your ebook. The appearance is just altered using styling and fonts.

Will using a Text Conversation or Written Note increase delivery costs?
Not at all. No images are used to create these, so you won’t see any increase in Amazon delivery costs.

Will Text Conversation bubbles appear on all ebook readers?
In purchased ebooks, yes. As usual, formatting is limited in ebooks sideloaded into Kindle for iPhone.

Will Text Conversation bubbles work in dark mode?
Yes! The text and bubble colors will change to adapt to dark mode and other color schemes. You can see how this works in Vellum’s Preview.

Will Written Note fonts still be visible when readers change their preferred font?
In purchased ebooks, yes. In Kindle ebooks that are sideloaded, there are some limitations.

Vellum 3.4

November 16, 2022

Vellum 3.4 is now available! Here’s what you’ll find in this newest release:

Text message bubbles shown within a book on an ebook reader

Text Messages

Writing a story set in the digital world? Use a Text Conversation to format texts between characters. Configure sent and received messages, and choose from six different style options for how they appear in your book.

Written Notes

You can go analog, too! With a Written Note, you can include a letter, note, or any other dispatch from a character. Set up the different parts of a letter and select from handwritten typefaces or options that match the primary font.

Export to Word

You use Import Word File to bring your manuscript into Vellum. Now you can go the other way, too! The Export Content command — found in the File menu — takes text you’ve written in Vellum and creates a Word file you can send to your editor.

Also in Vellum 3.4

In Body Style, you can disable hyphenation for Capitalized Words
You can also disable hyphenation for a specific word in your book
In situations when you can’t provide a Kindle-specific file, you can safely use Generic EPUB with Send to Kindle
You can now use SVG vector images in print (macOS Ventura only)

Vellum 3.4 is a free update. This version requires macOS Catalina or newer, and is compatible with macOS Ventura.

To get Vellum 3.4, use Check for Updates. Or download Vellum from vellum.pub.

Vellum 3.3.7

November 4, 2022

Vellum 3.3.7 fixes a macOS Ventura issue that caused importing to fail for Word documents with images.

This release is a free update, available now.

MacOS Ventura Now Available

October 24, 2022

Today, Apple has officially released Ventura, the newest version of macOS.

If you upgrade your Mac to Ventura, make sure you’re running the latest version of Vellum (3.3.6). You can do that using Check for Updates.

We’ve been testing Ventura since its beta release in the summer, and haven’t encountered any problems. If you experience an issue, though, please let us know.

Update 11/2/22: We’ve uncovered a problem importing manuscripts with images on macOS Ventura. We’ve reported this issue to Apple and are developing a workaround for the next update to Vellum.

Update 11/4/22: We’ve just released Vellum 3.3.7, which contains a fix for importing Word files with images on Ventura.