Duplicating Books

When creating alternate versions of your story, you often want to reuse characters, locations, and other elements from an existing book. Penpoint's duplication feature lets you create a copy of a book, choosing which parts to copy, so you don't have to manually recreate common elements. The original book is never changed — duplication creates an entirely separate copy.

Opening the Duplicate Window

To duplicate a book, navigate to the book library and locate the book you want to copy. Click the three-dot menu (⋮) on the book's card in the library, then select Duplicate.

The Duplicate Book window will appear, allowing you to name the new book and choose which content to include in the copy.

Choosing a Name

The first field asks for a name for the duplicated book. By default, Penpoint suggests adding " - The Sequel" to the original book's name, but you can change this to anything you like (up to 50 characters).

Picking What to Include

The duplication window provides checkboxes for different types of content. All checkboxes are checked by default, so everything will be copied unless you uncheck something. You can choose which elements to include in the new book:

• Characters: All characters with their profile details, traits, tags, relationships, and importance levels
• Items: All items and all their details
• Chapters: All chapters, where each chapter sits on the timeline, and their details
• Manuscript: All scenes, scene drafts (saved copies of a scene from before you made changes), and manuscript versions (frozen snapshots of your full manuscript). This option requires Chapters to be included, since scenes belong to chapters.
• Locations: All locations, including locations within locations, their types, and all their details
• Notes: All notebook entries, including their text, tags, colors, and pinned notes (notes you've pinned to the top)
• Arcs: Story Arcs and Character Arcs can be included together or separately, letting you carry over plot structure without character arcs (or vice versa). Includes your story arcs and their plot points, along with character arc details.
• Traits: All your custom traits and the choices you set up for them
• Tags: All tag definitions and colors
• Types (Location & Item Types): All item types and location types

What Doesn't Get Copied

Some information is intentionally not included in duplicates to prevent confusion:

• Your Last Position: The new book opens on the Characters page, rather than wherever you left off in the original

Creating the Duplicate

After entering a name and selecting which content to include, click Duplicate Book to create the copy. The duplicate is completely independent from the original; changes in one book won't affect the other.

The new book will appear in your book library. Click Open Book to jump into the duplicate and continue your story.

Common Use Cases

Here are some situations where duplicating books is particularly useful:

• Series Writing: don't duplicate for a series; convert your book with Converting a Book to a Series so characters are shared between volumes, not copied
• Alternate Versions: Explore "what if" scenarios by duplicating a book and making different character or plot choices
• Template Reuse: Create a "template book" with your standard traits and item types, then duplicate it for each new project
• Backup Before Major Changes: Duplicate a book before making large structural changes, giving you a restore point if needed