The Glorious Searchbar

The searchbar is one of Penpoint's most powerful tools. It searches across everything in your book (characters, locations, items, chapters, notes, story arcs, character arcs, tags, and even the prose content in your manuscripts) with instant results and rich context snippets. Whether you're hunting for a minor character mentioned once, tracking down where you described a specific location, or finding a passage you wrote three chapters ago, the searchbar finds it. In a series, search covers the whole series: every Book at once.

Opening the Search

Ctrl+K

Figure 1.1 - The searchbar in the navigation bar

Access the searchbar in two ways:

Press Ctrl+K (Windows/Linux) or ⌘K (Mac) from anywhere in Penpoint
Click on the search field in the navigation bar at the top of your screen

The keyboard shortcut opens the search in fullscreen mode, perfect for focused searching. Clicking the search bar opens an inline dropdown below the navigation bar.

How to Search

Simply start typing. The search activates after you type at least 2 characters, and results appear instantly as you type. No need to press Enter: results update in real-time.

Manuscript scene results require at least 4 characters to appear, since shorter queries would match too many passages in your prose. Up to 5 scene results are shown at a time, grouped under a separate Manuscripts heading below your worldbuilding results.

Tip: The search is always up-to-date. Create a new character or add a note, and it's immediately searchable.

Understanding Results

Results

Sherlock Holmes

Primary Character

A brilliant detective with exceptional deductive reasoning. Known for his detective work in Victorian London.

Primary

221B Baker Street

Residence

The famous address where Holmes lives with Dr. Watson. A modest apartment with a sitting room.

Magnifying Glass

Investigation Tool

Essential tool for examining clues. Used in nearly every investigation.

Case Notes: The Hound

Initial observations about the mysterious hound sightings on the moor.

Chapter 3: The Investigation Begins

Holmes and Watson arrive at the scene. The investigation proves more complex than expected.

Figure 2.1 - Search results showing different content types

Search results show rich context to help you find exactly what you're looking for:

Icon and color - Quickly identify the type of result (character, location, item, note, chapter, arc, scene, or tag)
Title - The name of the result
Subtitle - Additional context like character importance or block labels that match your search
Snippet - A preview of the content with your search terms highlighted
Importance badges - For characters, the importance level (Primary, Secondary, etc.) appears on the right
Book badges - In a series, Book-specific results carry a small badge showing which Book (or Books) they belong to; series-wide things like notes and tags don't need one

Content Types and Icons

Each type of content has its own icon and color:

Characters - Person icon, custom character color
Locations - Map pin icon, custom location color
Items - Package icon, custom item color
Notes - Document icon
Chapters - Book icon
Story Arcs & Character Arcs - Arc icon
Tags - Tag icon
Manuscript Scenes - Pen icon, searches your prose content (shown in a separate group below worldbuilding results)

Custom colors (for characters, locations, and items) match the colors you've assigned to them, making them instantly recognizable.

Navigating Results

Use your keyboard to quickly navigate and select results:

Up/Down arrows - Move between results
Enter - Select the highlighted result and navigate to it
Escape - Close the search dropdown (inline mode only)

When you select a result, Penpoint takes you directly to it and closes the search automatically.

Recent Searches

detective

Baker Street

investigation tools

Victorian London

Figure 3.1 - Recent searches for quick re-searching

When the search field is empty, you'll see your recent searches. This makes it easy to re-run searches you've done before.

Click a search - Re-runs that search immediately
X button - Removes that search from your history

Penpoint remembers your last 10 searches across sessions. Clear individual searches you no longer need, or let them naturally cycle out as you perform new searches.

Fullscreen Mode

For a more focused search experience, switch to fullscreen mode:

Press Ctrl+K (or ⌘K on Mac) to open fullscreen search from anywhere
Click the maximize icon on the right side of the inline search bar

Fullscreen mode shows up to 100 results (compared to 50 in inline mode) and provides more vertical space for browsing results. Your search text carries over automatically when switching between modes.

Tip: The searchbar searches across all your content: character names, descriptions, and traits, locations, items, chapter titles and details, author notes, story arcs, character arcs, tags, and the full text of your manuscript scenes. Everything is searchable.