Compiling

A Compilation is an export of a Manuscript to a single file or archive. Verb form: compile.

Trove compiles entirely on your machine. Nothing goes to the cloud, nothing requires an account, no round-trip through a third-party converter.

Formats

Format	When to use
Markdown	Concatenated .md. Best for handing to another tool — Pandoc, Vellum, Atticus, an LLM.
DOCX	For editors, beta readers, agents who request .docx. Word-compatible.
EPUB	For e-reader software. Self-published authors compile to EPUB.
ZIP bundle	Everything (manuscript + linked World Entities) in one archive. Good for archiving or transferring a complete Project.
PDF	On the roadmap (see issue #38).

DOCX and EPUB are generated by a Rust sidecar inside Trove (no Word, no Calibre needed). The Markdown export is straight file concatenation with structural separators.

Compile a Project

From the Project, open the Compile panel (sidebar → Compile icon, or ⌘E):

1. Pick a format.
2. Optionally pick a Folder to limit the scope (compile just Act One, for example).
3. Configure the output:
   • Include sticky notes — off by default.
   • Include comments — off by default.
   • Page size — A4 / Letter (for DOCX).
   • Title and author — pulled from Project manifest + your user Profile.
4. Click Compile and pick a save location.

That’s it. The file lands where you said.

Output structure

By default the compile walks the Manuscript tree in order:

• Folder titles become heading levels (Act One → H1, Chapter One → H2).
• Document titles become next-level headings.
• Document body becomes prose.
• Front matter (status, POV, story-time) is stripped from the output.

You can customise heading depth and folder→heading mapping in the Compile panel.

DOCX details

• Headings map to Word’s H1–H6 styles.
• Italics and bold map directly.
• Lists, blockquotes, footnotes, tables all carry over.
• Inline references ([[Character Name]]) become plain text by default (the bracket syntax is stripped to the visible name). There’s a toggle to keep them as hyperlinks.

EPUB details

• One chapter per top-level Folder.
• Spine generated from the Manuscript tree.
• Metadata (title, author, language) from Project manifest.
• Cover image: optional, set in Settings → Compile.

ZIP bundle details

The bundle includes:

• The Manuscript Markdown files (preserved tree structure).
• Linked World Entities (only the Types this Manuscript actually references).
• The Project manifest.
• A bundle.toml describing the bundle.

Useful for archiving a finished Project alongside its World state at the time, or for transferring a Project to another machine.

Round-tripping

Trove’s Compile is one-way — you compile out, you don’t import back in. If you need to round-trip through another tool (e.g. edit in Word, bring back the changes), the simplest path is:

1. Compile to Markdown.
2. Edit elsewhere (Word’s “Save as → Markdown” is not great; Pandoc round-trips well).
3. Manually copy the edits back into the matching Documents in Trove.

That friction is intentional. Trove’s Document tree is the source of truth — auto-merging external edits is the kind of magic that loses words. If you want fine-grained external history, put your Trove root in git.