Ilumax Write guide

Use styles and headings

Styles keep a document consistent and build its table of contents. Put the cursor in a paragraph and click a style in the gallery on the Home tab: Normal, Title, Subtitle, Heading 1 to Heading 3, Quote and more.

To change a style everywhere, format one paragraph the way you want, then right-click the style in the gallery and choose Update to Match Selection, or Modify… to set it directly.

The Design tab changes the whole document’s look: a theme (Ilumax, Studio, Gallery, Atelier, Darkroom, Sketchbook) and its Colors, Fonts and Paragraph Spacing.

Format text and paragraphs

The Home tab has the font and size, Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, colours and highlight, Change Case and Clear All Formatting; then Bullets, Numbering, Multilevel List, indents, alignment, Line and Paragraph Spacing, shading and borders.

⌘CommandD (Mac) or CtrlControlD (Windows) opens the Font dialog. The small button in the corner of the paragraph controls opens the Paragraph dialog.

Lists start themselves: type * or 1. at the start of a line. Tab and ShiftTab change the level, and pressing Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows) twice ends the list.

Work with tables

Insert ▸ Table: choose the size on the grid, or Insert Table… to type it. Convert Text to Table… turns selected text into a table.

With the cursor in a table, Table Design sets the style, header row and banding, and Table Layout inserts or deletes rows and columns (Insert Above, Insert Below, Insert Left, Insert Right), merges and splits cells, and has Repeat Header Rows for long tables.

Add pictures and shapes

Insert ▸ Pictures takes PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, BMP, WMF and EMF files; you can also drag a picture in or paste one. Insert ▸ Shapes, Icons, SmartArt, Chart and Text Box add the rest.

With a picture selected, Picture Format has Corrections, Color, Transparency, picture styles, Alt Text and Wrap Text: In Line with Text, Square, Tight, Top and Bottom, Behind Text or In Front of Text.

Set up the page

On the Layout tab: Margins, Orientation (Portrait or Landscape), Size (A4, Letter, A3, A5, Legal and more), Columns and Breaks. A new document’s paper size follows your computer’s region.

To start a new page, press ⌘CommandReturn (Mac) or CtrlControlEnter (Windows), or choose Layout ▸ Breaks ▸ Page.

Add headers, footers and page numbers

Insert ▸ Header or Footer adds one; Insert ▸ Page Number puts numbers at the Top of Page or Bottom of Page, or Page X of Y. Double-click the top or bottom of a page to edit the header or footer, and double-click the body text, or press Esc, to go back.

Make a table of contents

Use the heading styles for your headings, put the cursor where the contents should go, and choose References ▸ Table of Contents ▸ Automatic Table 1 (3 levels). After you change the document, click Update Table.

References also has Insert Footnote (⌘Command⌥OptionF on a Mac, CtrlControlAltF on Windows), Insert Endnote, citations and a bibliography, captions and an index.

Comment and track changes

Select some text and choose Review ▸ New Comment, or press ⌘Command⌥OptionM (Mac) or CtrlControlAltM (Windows). In the Comments pane you can Reply, Resolve and Delete.

To suggest edits instead of making them, turn on Review ▸ Track Changes (⌘Command⇧ShiftE on a Mac, CtrlControlShiftE on Windows), or switch Editing to Reviewing at the right of the tabs. To settle them, use Accept and Reject on the Review tab, one change at a time or Accept All Changes.

Review ▸ Compare shows the differences between two versions of a document.

Check spelling and grammar

Write underlines mistakes as you type. Right-click one for suggestions, Ignore All or Add to Dictionary.

To go through the whole document, press F7 or click Review ▸ Spelling & Grammar. Each press selects the next issue; when there are none left, the status bar says The spelling and grammar check is complete.

English is built in. Polish and Portuguese are checked too when a spelling dictionary for them is installed on the computer. Review ▸ Language sets the language of selected text, or Do Not Check Spelling or Grammar for it.

Find and replace

⌘CommandF (Mac) or CtrlControlF (Windows) opens the search box in the Navigation pane and lists every match. To replace, click Replace on the Home tab (on Windows also CtrlControlH); the Find and Replace dialog has Find, Replace and Go To tabs.

Count words

The status bar shows the word count, and the selection’s while you have one. Click it, or choose Review ▸ Word Count, for pages, characters, paragraphs and lines.

Print

Press ⌘CommandP (Mac) or CtrlControlP (Windows). On the Print page, choose the Printer, Copies, Two-sided printing and which Pages, check the preview, and click Print. Save these pages as PDF… makes a PDF of just those pages.

Read and zoom

Read Mode in the status bar shows the document for reading, with settings for column width, text size and line spacing; Esc goes back. View also has Outline and Draft.

To zoom, use the slider in the status bar, hold ⌘Command (Mac) or CtrlControl (Windows) and turn the mouse wheel, or pinch on a trackpad. Click the percentage to open Zoom.

Protect a document with a password

File ▸ Info ▸ Protect Document ▸ Encrypt with Password… asks for a password, which is then needed to open the document. Change Password… and Remove Password are in the same place.

Save automatically

With AutoSave on, as it is to begin with, Write saves your document a few seconds after you stop typing, once you have saved it yourself as .docx, .odt or .rtf. A file you have only opened is left alone until you save it. If the switch is grey, point at it to see why.

There is no recovery of unsaved work after a crash, so save early, or let AutoSave do it, and save before you quit.